Something's bothering you. You did some poking around, and you discovered a clue that just doesn't match up with what you know about the situation at large. It's almost as if someone is trying to pull a
Xanatos Gambit on your team. So you decide to run this information past your ally,
Nialliv. He listens, perhaps admits that this does indeed sound suspicious, and then casually asks: "Have you told anyone else?"
What's that phrase mean? Well, three things:
- The information you've discovered is enough to at least screw up the Big Bad's plans if not bring him down entirely.
- Unfortunately, the first (and now, likely, the only) person you revealed this information to is the Treacherous Advisor or some other variety of The Mole, and possibly the Big Bad himself.
- As soon as you innocently tell him that no, he's the first person you've mentioned this to, he's likely going to make sure that information dies with you. Check your shirt color.
- Occasionally there is another step: Why yes, there was one person you told, Mr. Dead-Meat. By amazing coincidence, Mr. Dead-Meat accidentally shoots himself in the back of the head twice the next day. You are still alive because you're too dumb to connect the dots and there's probably some part of the Xanatos Gambit you need to fulfill.
No one's ever
Genre Savvy enough to lie and say something like, "Why yes, I told Bob, Joe, and Susan, and they're passing the word along to the rest of the team as we speak, as well as hiding copies of the evidence in several locations. But they sent me to tell you directly. And I called and told them I was here right before I rang the doorbell." Rather, they proudly(!) admit that they told Nialliv first. For the one who noticed the hole in his
Evil Plan, they aren't too bright, are they? (If they do say they told someone else, it's obvious that they just
now realized their error, and are badly lying about it. Nialliv sees right through this.)
This moment is usually
The Reveal for the audience that Nialliv is playing for the other team.
Sometimes phrased as "Does anyone else know about this?" or "Have you discussed this with anyone else?" The key words are always "anyone else". Occasionally one gets "Have you told [specific other person] yet?", where the other person is someone with the power to do something about it -- the boss, the Slayer, whatever. Oddly, this makes no sense, as anyone else they told could tell specific other person.
Examples:
- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: When Edmund, under the influence of evil Turkish Delight, tells the White Witch his sister has also been to Narnia and met a faun, she quickly asks him who else knows about this, but he's in no condition, and for that matter has no reason, at this point to be suspicious.
- The opening of the film Red Dragon. Late at night, FBI Agent Will Graham goes to meet with Dr. Hannibal Lecter, who had been assisting him in developing a psychological profile of a serial killer. Agent Graham tells Dr. Lecter that he suddenly realized that the killer was eating parts of his victims. Lecter replies, "Have you shared this information with the Bureau?"
- Episode seven of Death Note involves the line, and really, both characters in question should be above the trope (although, the victim is on the way to tell someone important and was smart enough to use an alias).
- Subverted in Sovisa. Aleksei reports to his captain about a strange signal that was sent from their ship. When the captain asks if he's told the rest of the crew yet, Aleksei simply shoots him point blank in the chest and ejects his body out an airlock.
- In the movie Minority Report, Danny Witwer gets to carry the Idiot Ball for revealing his suspicions to the wrong person.
- In The Bourne Supremacy when Danny Zorn (Abbott's assistant) reveals to Abbott that he realizes the crime scene is sham, and gets a dagger in the ribs for it.
- In L.A. Confidential when Detective Jack Vincennes, while investigating a suspicious murder in co-operation with Detective Ed Exeley, finds evidence of corruption within the police department. Instead of informing Exeley, he makes a beeline to the chief of police's house, at night, without telling anyone. Jack is not alarmed when the chief casually asks, "What does Exeley make of all this?" Half a second after giving his answer, there's a bullet in his chest.
- The Doctor Who episode "Boom Town" starts with an unfortunate scientist telling the mayor that her upcoming nuclear power station project is terribly unsafe, almost as if it was intended to go wrong... Needless to say, he doesn't survive the conversation. Subverted in that the scientist had told someone else.
- Similarly a journalist to Mister Saxon in "The Sound of Drums", complete with identical subversion.
- There's dozens upon dozens of examples in the original series, of course, way too many to list.
- In the remake of Planet Of The Apes two Mooks bring General Thade out into the forest and recount a story of seeing something crash down, burning the trees as it went and they point out the destruction it caused. Trying to protect the secret that humans were once in charge, Thade names this trope and when they say no he does an interesting monkey flip backwards to stab them both.
- Played with in Detective Conan episode 36. The villain, after being confronted by Conan alone, asks Conan if he told anyone about this, to which Conan responds that he didn't--and also volunteers the information that nobody knows where Conan is, either. She doesn't kill him and Conan later speculates she wanted to be caught by a child; it's not explained what Conan would have done if that guess was wrong.
- Monsters Inc: After Mr. Waternoose hears the full story of the incident from Mike, he asks, "Does anyone else know about this?"
- The Ten Commandments: Memnet comes to Nefertiri with the story of how Bithia drew Moses from the Nile. Nefertiri quickly asks, "Were you alone with Bithia?" before she kills Memnet.
- Subverted in The X Files when AD Skinner wishes to make a deal with the cigarette smoking man about a tape containing classified information. CSM tells Skinner his deal has one problem (namely that CSM is holding Skinner at gun point and can be easily killed and searched) at which point Skinner reveals his trump. He has had a Navajo translator read and memorize all the information on the tape and orally tell it to twenty other tribal leaders throughout the United States who are all ordered to testify said information should any one of the people in the group die. CSM, who does not wish to have all the info revealed or to kill all the people necessary to keep them silent, agrees to the deal. Further subverted in that it is implied that the original translator had no idea why Skinner asked him to come and help make the deal.
