Moments of horrified realizations happening mid-explanation in Video Games.
- Pretty much anytime the lawyer in Ace Attorney points out a contradiction that puts their client into deeper hot water is bound to turn into this. Bonus points if it requires the prosecutor to explain why this is a problem for them. One particularly significant example occurs in Case 5-5: Phoenix Wright has managed to figure out where the vital evidence they need is, but when the accused asks to see this evidence, he realizes it was blown up by the courtroom bombing earlier, which is why the bombing happened in the first place.
- At one point in BioShock Infinite, the airship Booker and Elizabeth intend to use to escape Columbia gets commandeered by the Vox Populi, who will only return it if Booker manages to contact a local gunsmith to arm their revolution. Seems simple enough... until Booker has to explain the deal out loud to Elizabeth (not helped by how at the moment, she's in a sour mood and leaving him dangling on a slippery rope above a mighty abyss):Elizabeth: You can get us out of here?
Booker: Yes! I just... (realizing the burden) need to supply enough weapons to arm an entire uprising. - Borderlands 2:
- Early on, Robot Buddy Claptrap has his eye stolen by a bullymong (a four-armed yeti-like monster) named Knuckle Dragger. Luckily, Claptrap can receive transmissions from the eye when near it.Claptrap: My eye just switched back on! I see a tough-looking minion, and an incredibly handsome robot! Which means that whoever has my eye… (starts quivering in fear) …is very close…
(Cue boss fight with Knuckle Dragger) - The Mr. Torgue DLC has a sidequest where Torgue realizes that the beer in the local pub has been contaminated and sends you to kill everyone in the bar to prevent them from getting poisoned by the beer. It takes him until after you complete the quest for him to realize what he just did.
- Early on, Robot Buddy Claptrap has his eye stolen by a bullymong (a four-armed yeti-like monster) named Knuckle Dragger. Luckily, Claptrap can receive transmissions from the eye when near it.
- A Faux Horrific example happens near the end of Destroy All Humans! 2 when facing the Final Boss Milenkov, where you have to blast off his armor in order to disable his Healing Factor. As Crypto's Mission Control Pox explains this to him, Pox realizes that this will result in Milenkov's grotesque Blisk form being completely naked, and reacts with mock horror.
- In DC Universe Online one early game mission has the player aiding Batman in figuring out some of the Riddler's clues while dealing with the Joker's goons. After they get to the second riddle - "The Joker is king, but slave to a tool - he thinks he's master, but he is a fool. When his toxin is in play, you'll know tomorrow what you should know today" - both Batman and Oracle realizing the Joker is working with someone for making his new Joker Toxin, but they're playing him behind his back. At the third location where the last riddle should be, the player is attacked by J1N1 robots. Batman recognizes the robots as resembling the hero Red Tornado and begins to mention their creator when it dawns on him what the riddle means: The Joker is working with Dr. T.O. Morrow. You can just hear the eye rolling as Batman resigningly congratulating the Riddler for that one.
- In Fallout: New Vegas, you can meet an Outlaw Couple who think that an antique submachine gun makes them dangerous enough to go on a crime spree through the Strip. If the Courier sarcastically says it's the most brilliant plan they have ever heard, the Bonny of the duo starts gloating about how they've got it all worked out, gradually noticing all the holes in the plan until she realizes they have no idea what they're doing and hands the gun over to you.
- Final Fantasy XIII-2 has a spoilery one between boss fights. Academia, 400 AF: Serah and Noel discover a "Proto fal'Cie" in charge of the city, and Caius tells them they learned a 'forbidden history' two hundred years prior, so they go time-hopping to find out what it was. Augusta Tower, 200 AF: Serah and Noel discover that the AI responsible for creating the Proto fal'Cie was the Proto fal'Cie. After a short boss fight, Noel and Serah realize that the digital space within the AI mainframe is a temporal crossroads, borne of a paradox distortion. The AI knew they're trying to solve paradoxes, so it sent them here in an effort to have them killed and protect the distortion that resulted in its creation. Abruptly, Serah realizes that the temporal crossroads means it can reconstruct itself... and cue round two.
- In Final Fantasy XIV Binding Coils of Bahamut, Alphinaud and Alisaie are trying to figure out what's keeping the titular primal alive after he ravaged Eorzea. Primals are fueled by prayers, and can't be sustained and brought back without their followers to call them back; despite this, Bahamut is somehow being preserved and restored by the Allagan magitek that had previously bound him within the artificial moon Dalamud. After observing the numerous dragons being held in stasis throughout the Dalamud wreckage, Alphinaud asks about the tech, and Alisaie starts sharing her earlier theories before she realizes the truth happening and curses herself for not catching it sooner: the captive dragons are the same Meracydian dragons that originally summoned Bahamut, and the Alligan magitek is using their prayers and desires to restore and empower him.
- Near the end of Sensei Ishikawa's Side Quest in Ghost of Tsushima, he and Jin realize his rogue student Tomoe is trying to get off the island. Jin wonders aloud why she went to Umagi Cove, a Wretched Hive of criminals... and verbally facepalms as he realizes that includes smugglers.
- Genshin Impact: Chapter IV revolves around a prophecy that Fontaine will dissolve in a flood of Primordial Seawater, with everyone trying to find a way to stop it. With no other options left, the heroes are forced to hold Furina under trial under the suspicion that she's not the Hydro Archon in hopes of squeezing out some answers during the trial. At the climax though, the heroes review the prophecy again now that a missing piece has been recovered, but the Traveller and Paimon question if the last two slates are in the right order, since the penultimate slate seems to depict the Hydro Archon falling into the Primordial Sea surrounded by her people, while the last slate depicts the Hydro Archon on her throne weeping at the devastation, which shouldn't be possible if she already fallen into the Primordial Water and dissolved. However, Neuvillette explains that the third slate is actually a metaphorical depiction instead of a literal one and how it should actually be interpreted is the Hydro Archon will be held for trial by her own people. In other words, the heroes accidentally ended fulfilling the last part of the prophecy before everything goes to absolute hell. Oops.
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has CJ experience this during the Wham Episode The Green Sabre. Instead of meeting up with Sweet for the showdown with the rival Ballas gang, he meets with Cesar to check out something he heard about. The two see a pair of Balla gangbangers with Big Smoke and Ryder as they open up the garage. Inside the garage is a green Sabre, the same car that was used in a drive-by that killed CJ's mother. Once CJ sees Tenpenny and Pulaski with them as well, he can only quietly express shock at Big Smoke and Ryder's betrayal. CJ thanks Cesar for showing him the setup and plans to tell Sweet about the whole thing, only to realize that Sweet and his crew are now walking into a trap set by the Ballas.
- Played for Laughs in Guilty Gear Xrd where Ky starts to explain the lineage of his wife, Dizzy, only for him to realize to his growing horror that he and Sol are now in-laws.
- Leo Whitefang's announcer voice pack also features him doing this if he's selected as a fighter.
- In one bad ending of Heart of the Woods, Morgan sees the fairies swarming around Madison, calling her their queen, and realizes that since Geladura is now dead, Madison must stay and serve as the replacement queen forever.
- Hiveswap: Xefros comes to the realization that Dammek is a pretty shitty moirail after passing the Jade/Teal car with a little nudging from Joey.Xefros: oh
- Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance] has a particularly well-done example late in the game, courtesy of Donald, Goofy, and Yen Sid. Thanks to Lea, they've already reasoned that Xehanort has known what they were going to do by sending Sora and Riku back in time to the day the Destiny Islands were taken by darkness. However, in order to interfere, Xehanort would need to have been at the Destiny Islands that day; Yen Sid is convinced that that level of foresight is beyond Xehanort. When Goofy proposes that he might have done the same time-traveling Sora and Riku did, Yen Sid clarifies that it is Mental Time Travel - he would still need a body at the destination, because not even Xehanort can transport his body across time. Mickey abruptly panics on remembering who the villain was during Kingdom Hearts: Ansem, the Seeker of Darkness. Xehanort's Heartless, who did not have a body of his own.Yen Sid: No! It cannot be! Could he be that cunning? Possess that kind of foresight?
- Odd inversion from Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning where Agarth starts off angry then calms down as the facts hit (He just saw you Screw Destiny and use it as a weapon). It helps that the destiny you just screwed happened to be the one that would have resulted in his messy death not two minutes prior to the conversation.Agarth: What are you!? DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE!? Do you know how many lives will remain untouched by his death!? How many children won't be born!? (calming down) How many people... he won't kill...
- Kingdom of Loathing's "Heavy Rains" special challenge path replaces most of its usual bosses with a watery imitation. Luckily, there's absolutely no way that would ever work on the Icy Peak!"I mean, it's freezing up here! A water-based giant winged yeti would have to be... made of... oh, crap."
A huge winged yeti that appears to be sculpted out of ice emerges from the mist, takes off into the air, and swoops toward you. - The Lab's minigame "Slingshot" features a Personality Core named the Calibration Core. It explains that its only function is to be calibrated, which is (*cough*ostensibly*cough*) what you've been doing to the cores. After needlessly elaborating on this point for a while, we get to this dialog:Once the Calibration Core has been calibrated, the Calibration Core will have no purpose. Calibration of the Calibration Core may result in an existential crisis for the Calibration Core. [pause] Once calibrated, the Calibration Core will descend into a deep, deep, deep, deep, deep depression.note
- League of Legends: Sentinel Graves has this bit of dialogue as he's thinking about his situation:"The Sentinels are alright. A little desperate, and confused, and sad... oh god, what did I agree to?"
- Mass Effect: When the issue of what to do with the last rachni queen comes up, Garrus argues against wiping them out, because the thorny issue of genocide is why the salarians uplifted the krogan... to wipe out the rachni. For extra points, Garrus still says this if Wrex, a krogan, is the other person in the party.Wrex: You wanna see genocide, I'll show you a krogan obstetrician's office.
- Mordin Solus' introduction and Establishing Character Moment in Mass Effect 2 begins with Mordin performing a Sherlock Scan on the newly-arrived Commander Shepard and their team, while verbalizing his inner monologue; assuming the player doesn't interrupt him, he determines that the characters aren't from the area, too well-armed to be refugees, too informally-dressed to be any of the local mercenaries, and that they aren't there to wipe out the Vorcha or to investigate The Plague's usefulness as a bioweapon. Eventually, he decides that they must be looking for someone important, someone with secrets... and then realizes that they're almost certainly looking for him. A minute later he does it again when Shepard explains that they were sent by a privately-funded human group to recruit Mordin. Immediately, Mordin starts sorting through a long list of possible candidates for the aforementioned group. After disregarding the Alliance, the Spectres, the Terra Firma Party, he finally realizes (with some shock) that the most likely candidate is Cerberus, a terrorist group with human-supremacist leanings. Thanks to Solus' manner of thinking through problems by verbally monologuing his thought process, he tends to dip into this trope a lot whenever the conclusion is something particularly nasty.
- In Mass Effect 3, if Shepard chooses not to tell anyone that the salarian STG sabotaged the genophage cure years ago and Shepard was informed of this in advance, and then tries to dissuade Mordin/Padok from going up the Shroud tower, Mordin will wonder why, since Shepard doesn't seem concerned for his safety. So is Shepard convinced Mordin might discover something? Well then it must be sabotage, but whose?...Ah. In Padok's case, he'll wonder why Shepard would abandon their goal after having come so far...unless there's something up there they don't want Padok to discover. The temperature malfunction wasn't an accident; Shepard knew about this!
- Metal Gear Solid: After taking down Liquid's Hind D, Snake asks Otacon to fix the seemingly broken elevator he needs to proceed; as it turns out, the elevator starts working on its own shortly afterwards, and when Snake gets on it, the weight limit warning goes off. As the elevator goes down, Snake gets a Codec call from Otacon, who reveals that he had gone back to his lab to retrieve one of the remaining stealth camo prototypes for Snake, only to discover that all four prototypes are missing. He goes on to say that it seems that someone was intentionally holding the elevator Snake is currently in, and that the weight limit warning went off for him as well; as Otacon explains, he only weighs 135 pounds, whereas the elevator weight limit is 650 pounds. Snake realizes that it would take at least five people to go over that limit... and then they both realize that Snake isn't alone in the elevator.Otacon: Look out, Snake! The guys who stole my stealth prototypes are in there with you!
- Metroid: Other M: When Samus is speaking to Madeline Bergman about the fact that the Bottle Ship has cloned Metroids to be used as bioweapons, she explains that the only way to control them would be through Mother Brain's telepathy... and then immediately realizes that the Federation must have cloned her as well.
- One of the lunchtime events in Monster Prom has you drink Veras' scotch and then act as if it was poisoned to scare off Miranda. When Miranda faints, Vera exclaims that she should poison her scotch more often.* Only at this point does she realize that you're probably not faking the symptoms.
- In Chapter 1 of Mortal Kombat 11, Jade delivers a report about Earthrealmers seizing the Bone Temple while Raiden is dicing up Liu Kang and Kitana's demonic hordes. Kitana barely gets a few words out of her mouth before they all realize why nobody's reinforcing him:Liu Kang: He's the distraction!
- Nobody Saves the World: When Randy finds out that Nobody is Nostramagus, he goes on a large rant about all the crap Nostramagus has put him through before realizing that Nostramagus never intended on actually allowing him to graduate as he was a source of free labor for him.
- In Persona 4: The Investigation Team, and most likely the player as well due to Fair-Play Whodunnit, has one when they determine who the Killer is. Looking at the evidence alone, it becomes clear that the person who would be in the best position to get away with the killer's crimes and leave no evidence is Adachi. While there's still some doubt since the Investigation Team saw him as a "textbook lousy detective", the team talks it over and realizes that not only had Adachi been doing some very suspicious things that went overlooked since he was Beneath Suspicion, but he was also in the perfect position to commit the murders when they happened. Sure enough, when they confront Adachi, he gives some very dodgy answers in response to their questions, and eventually presses him hard enough that he blurts out something that indicates that he knows about the TV World, which implicates him since, outside of the Investigation Team and a few others, only the Killer would know about the TV World.
- In Psychonauts, after a training session gone awry in Sasha's mind, Raz asks him what would happen if one were to block off all of a mind's censor outlets, which needless to say he'd just done.Sasha: Well, there would be a buildup of censor energy within that would, ah, eventually... Run, Razputin. Very fast.
- At the end of Quantum Conundrum, Prof. Quadwrangle finally recalls what he was doing before he got trapped in the pocket dimension. Unfortunately, he remembers too late that turning on the Uber-IDS — like he just told you to — was what started this mess in the first place, and you end up causing a nearly-catastrophic dimensional instability as the Uber-IDS, overloaded by all the spilled Science Juice throughout the lab, causes the whole world to shift through the light, heavy, slow-mo, and anti-gravity dimensions, which Quadwrangle will have to fix.
- Sonic Colors has Eggman using the PA system to inform the owner of a "white hovercar shaped like an egg" that their car has been broken into. He only realizes that it's ''his'' car that's been vandalized partway through repeating the message, and reacts accordingly.
- Star Control: In The Ur-Quan Masters, the Slylandro purchase a probe from the Melnorme, which would explore the galaxy, replicate itself periodically, and report back once it finds something interesting. However, in the midst of an in-depth discussion of said probes with the player, they realize that due to an attempt to get the probes to replicate faster (by changing the priority of replication to 999, the highest setting on the dial), they have inadvertently caused their probes to attempt to procure raw materials for replication from anything they encounter, with a special priority on alien ships. This has effectively transformed their peaceful exploration fleet into a Horde of Alien Locusts.
- StarCraft: One of the first cutscenes in the Terran campaign features a pair of soldiers on patrol in the middle of the night. A Zergling jumps in front of their vehicle, startling them and prompting them to get out of the car and investigate. One of the soldiers, Lester, misidentifies the Zergling as a large dog, while the other, only referred to as Sarge, clarifies what it is and is just starting to mention how odd it is that the Zerg are prowling around so far from their hive when he hears a another Zerg hiss and realizes there are Zerg prowling that far from their hive. He and Lester turn around to see a pack of Hydralisks staring them down, ready to tear them apart.Lester: It looks like you mashed some poor feller's dog, Sarge.
Sarge: It's a Zergling, Lester. Smaller type'a Zerg. But they ain't be out this far unless... OH SHIT! - In Sunrider Liberation Day, Kayto notices something off about the enemy fleet’s tactics during the Battle of Cera and wonders why the PACT fleet is closing in to engage with the Alliance ships (who have the decisive advantage at close range, due to their battleships mounting powerful kinetic weapons) instead of hunkering down and blasting them from long range with lasers (as Alliance ships traditionally don’t have the Deflector Shields needed to negate incoming laser fire). When Ava explains that the Alliance has brought in specialized shield cruisers to cover their entire fleet, Kayto suddenly realizes what the enemy is planning:Kayto: But if all our shields are generated by cruisers, a fleet of smaller craft can… Relay a message to the Alliance fleet. Prepare for Anti-ryder combat.
Ava: Sir?
Kayto: Do it now. (…) Form a defensive line in front of the shield cruisers! The prototypes intend to sacrifice all their ryders to take them out! - Uncharted 4: A Thief's End: While boating through tropical waters searching for the lost pirate colony of Libertalia and the treasure of Captain Henry Avery, Sam and Nate's joking hits on a sad possibility:Sam: So, maybe Libertalia is more of a beachside shack...
Nate: Yeah, maybe it's a treehouse.
Sam: Or maybe Avery spent his entire fortune setting up this treasure hunt...and ran out of money to actually build Libertalia.
Nate: Yeah. - Undertale:
- If you take the Genocide Path, Flowey (who tries to drive you to do Genocide no matter what, for spoilery reasons) will warm up to you, and eventually he'll tell you his backstory, and talk about how he and the player aren't so different, since the player will kill everyone in their way, with absolutely no exceptions. Mid-gloat, he'll realize that he's not an exception either, and your final encounter is Flowey pleading fruitlessly for his life.
- In a much lighter example, Alphys is all too eager to answer a question about "Mew Mew Kissy Cutie" during Mettaton's quiz show, despite the fact that you were supposed to answer. She realizes it partway through her answer, and smiles sheepishly as Mettaton catches on that she's been helping you answer correctly throughout the quiz. Mettaton promptly decides to humiliate her by making the final question about who her crush is.
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: Geralt and Vesemir discuss how fussy Yennefer has become. She even threw out the bed from the guest room, which was a nice bed. Triss loved that bed.... Then they realize that the bed she threw out is the same bed Geralt spent the better part of a year having sex with Triss, Yennefer's best friend, in, and wisely shut up.
- Wizardry IV has a fairly funny one if, at the end of the game, you try to pick up the Amulet without the Mythril Gauntlet, which would let you safely touch it. The narration declares that you "have [the Amulet] in your hand!", then does a verbal double-take before realizing it's in your bare hand. Werdna promptly disintegrates.
