|
|
"Give me ten minutes, and I could start a war."
" Everything goes somewhere, and I go everywhere."
Some people are good at fighting. Some are good at thinking. Some have special powers. And some... have just the right info to make everyone else useful.
This is the person who always seems to have the dirt on everybody. The person who runs an information-gathering system, with a network of informers.
The Knowledge Broker has a web of contacts stretching into various organizations, industries, and government agencies, and always seems to know what's going on. Sometimes the Knowledge Broker seem nearly omniscient. He always seems to have the right tidbit of information for whoever is willing to pay the price. For the most part, he remains impartial despite his vast influence, and most people know to stay on his good (or at least indifferent) side.
This is a person who is not mysterious (Compare Mysterious Informant). Everybody knows that when you want information you go talk to this person. Usually of dubious morality. Often your innocent hero has a buddy who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, and knows that they ought to start by talking to "Big Eddie" or whoever, cause he always "knows anything that goes down."
Sometimes the source of information is more upscale in appearance, in which case they are probably also The Humphrey. They usually want something from the hero before they hand out the information (unless they owe the Hero a favor, or have a crush on him). Often they'll want nothing more than cash, but sometimes they want the Hero to run an errand for them. Or they may trade information for information. If there is romantic subtext, she might ask the Hero to be her escort somewhere — always a good choice for drama when the hero is looking for information about the kidnapping of his love interest. Obviously saving his true love justifies cheating on his true love — or does it?
Many times this character is relegated to a position as a Plot Device. When the Knowledge Broker is given Character Development, expect him to have a traumatizing past and/or an old relationship with one of the protagonists. When acting as a contact for the heroes, expect the Knowledge Broker to supply the Plot Hook to propel the story forward. If the heroes get stuck, expect him to suddenly come up with a new lead. If he's mostly in it for the money, expect either a Face Heel Turn or a Heel Face Revolving Door that may one day make someone put a gun to his head. If he's less-than-impartial towards the main character, expect him to deny payment, with an excuse like "I owed you a favor anyway." Likely to Default To Good (if only because the good side winning would keep them in business); rarely, if ever, is this character working strictly for the antagonist.
If the contact is a recurring character and the Knowledge Broker and the protagonist are different genders ( or not), expect romantic subtext.
Real Life information brokers tend to be consultants who work in market research, though there are exceptions.
See also The Fixer.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime and Manga
- The Daily Days, a newspaper from Baccano!
- Big Ear, (because he heard about everything, you know), from The Big O. You know, the one with the glasses...
- Ginko from Kure-nai, for the romantic subtext version. Also Shinkurou's Unlucky Childhood Friend.
- Nabiki Tendo of Ranma 1/2.
- Fuuchoin Kazuki from Get Backers theoretically does this for a living, although he's more often seen kicking ass.
- Haruo Nijima from Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple is a partial case of this. Though he has incredibly skills in analyzing enemies and information gathering in general, he acquires all his intelligence for the sole purpose of furthering his own goals of power.
- Information brokers are one of the most lucrative jobs people can have in the After the End setting of Gundam X. The second episode has a broker boasting about how they're so much smarter than those idiot mobile suit pilots. Then he's vaporized by the GX's Satellite Cannon.
- The man known only as Yamada in all incarnations of Mai-HiME where he appears.
- Hiruma of Eyeshield 21. Like Nijima he uses it for his own gains and specializes in blackmail with it.
- Rufus Barma in Pandora Hearts.
- A series of unnamed women in Mnemosyne, who drink Grasshoppers and take sex as payment (yeah, it's that kind of show).
- Orihara Izaya from Durarara!!, though it's hard to tell whether he's doing it for the money or simply because It Amuses Him.
- Becky Farrah from Gunsmith Cats.
- Black Butler has the Undertaker. He's just in it for the laughs.
- Gun X Sword has Carmen99.
Comic Books
- Oracle.
- Batman villain The Penguin functions as an information broker for Gotham's underworld, with a little arms dealing thrown in for good measure.
- Information is just another commodity in the world of Finder, and Lynne Grosvenor is implied to be one of the best infotraders in Anvard. Within an hour of his sisters' mugging, he's recovered their belongings and tipped off the police (if not something worse, considering how protective he is of Marcie).
- Nomad, from Marvel Comics, confronts the 'Favor Broker', who is also a Big Bad, multiple times through his title series. The Broker claims not to like the position he is stuck in but is too piled up with favors to ever quit.
- The Consultant from PS238.
- In the Astro City story, "The Tarnished Angel," Donnelly Furguson uses his knowledge of the city's underworld to find jobs for the B-rate villains of Kiefer Square. He arranges for all of them to be hired for a city-wide crime spree planned by fallen hero El Hombre, who plans to kill all the villains and restore his heroic stature. Steeljack didn't like associating with him even before all this came to light, but because Furguson didn't have a record he was one of the very few people he knew with whom he could freely mingle without violating his parole. He never gets what's coming to him, but he's not the same man after the El Conquistador incident, either.
- The Harlot functions as this in Fall of Cthulhu. As one of the most powerful entities in the Dream Land, she can provide virtually any form of information; her asking price is generally a piece of the client's body, though she will occasionally accept pieces of the client's mind — especially in the case of Raymond Dirk.
- Max Normal in early Judge Dredd comics.
Fanworks
- Dungeon Keeper Ami features Keeper Midori, who fits this Trope to a T. She keeps close tabs on all the warring factions in the story, often popping up at opportune moments- such as lulls in the fighting -to offer information on their enemies, at a price.
- Futari Wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon has Omemi Emiru, a different sort of an Alpha Bitch who uses this (something she calls a "talent" for coming upon other people's information) to keep her classmates in line. Her Etherium powers reflect this, as she uses her illusion abilities to, in a sense, construct what others see of reality, made more convincing by what she's found out about them.
Film
- The Brain in the film noir send up Brick.
- The Merovingian from The Matrix sequels. "I am a trafficker of information, I know everything I can."
- In Osmosis Jones, this was the function of the Flu shot. Kinda justified, if by a long shot, by those who know a bit of biology.
- In Heat (1995) Robert DeNiro's character consults such a figure for intelligence on potential heists and police opponents. When DeNiro asks him where he gets this stuff he replies that it just comes to him through the air (his house is festooned with antennae and located on a hill above Los Angeles).
- Louis, the French guy from Munich, along with the rest of his family.
- Skinny Pete from the 2003 remake of The Italian Job acts as this for Charlie and his crew when they pull their final heist in L. A.
- Doctor Know... is in the know. And is also an unreliable search engine that charges per-question, but that's besides the point.
Literature
- Varys "The Spider" from A Song of Ice and Fire. Having no title or wealth (being referred to as Lord out of courtesy basically), and being a foreign eunuch, he only managed to survive the overthrow of the Targaryen dynasty because of his usefulness.
- Slughorn from the Harry Potter novels was one.
- Chrysalis, the transparent-skinned owner of the Crystal Palace bar in the Wild Cards universe, uses a telepathic bartender and tiny spy-creatures spawned by a unique Joker to gather information— along with the traditional bribes and espionage.
- The sheer scale of the Star Wars universe dictates a rather absurd number of these. By far the best, though, is smuggler-in-chief Talon Karrde, whose organization, which took over after Jabba The Hutt's enterprises collapsed with his death, was basically built on information brokering. He ended up defaulting to the New Republic's side after Thrawn had him kidnapped to try and coax the location of a lost fleet out of him. In the Hand Of Thrawn duology, he took a certain crucial bit of intelligence to Supreme Commander Pellaeon in time for a Big Damn Heroes moment, and his organization sets up between the newly at peace New Republic and Imperial Remnant, making sure information flows freely to both sides so there won't be any nasty secrets. His old mentor basically knows everything, but withdrew from galactic affairs.
- Around second place or so are the various other important smugglers, and government agents are somewhere around twentieth. Unless they're Thrawn's agents, that is, or wherever and whatever he gets his intel from.
- Pahvulti, the renegade Tech Priest in Simon Spurrier's Warhammer 40,000 Night Lords novel Lord of the Night. He was exceptionally good at his job, becoming the information baron of an entire hive, due to his mentality of a cad combined with his thought processes being that of a computer.
- Amoral Attorney Kodringer in The Witcher
- Charles Augustus Milverton of the Sherlock Holmes tale that bears his name.
- After refusing to back down from a touchy case and losing her position, Wolfe from the Andrew Vachss Burke books takes on this role, and is apparently the best at it.
- "Done it" Duncan of the Discworld acts unwillingly as this, as he claims to have performed every crime that happens in the city, including a Suspiciously Specific Denial that can be very useful to the Watch.
- The Outsiders from Larry Niven's Known Space stories.
- The Remover of Inconvenient Obstacles from Tad Williams's War Of The Flowers.
- The former CIA from Snow Crash is a knowledge-brokering company. Among other things it employs camera-laden guys who roam around recording everything, in case it'll come in handy later.
Live Action TV
Tabletop Games
- Having good contacts is key to survival in Shadowrun. If you don't wanna die or get arrested by Lone Star, that is. They're even ranked: Level 1 contacts are basically acquaintances, Level 2 are slightly more trustworthy because they know you and have worked with you in the past, and Level 3 is an old friend who will bend over backwards to help you.
- The rankings are changed in Fourth Edition - now there are two categories, Loyalty and Connections. Level 1 Loyalty is someone who likes you but doesn't really care about you; Level 6 is someone who will dive under a bus for you. Level 1 Connections... aren't (a Mafia grunt who hasn't "made his bones"); Level 6 Connections are the people you need people who know people to see (the Don).
- The entire Nosferatu clan serve this function in Vampire The Masquerade and its PC counterpart. Being vampires that live Beneath the Earth and have the ability to turn invisible, they have considerable influence- allowing them to charge high prices for information and make life unbearable for unwanted customers.
- In Vampire The Requiem, this role belongs to the Mekhet clan, who have the added advantage of looking normal, and being able to acquire information directly through supernatural means (such as mind-reading, psychometry, or astral projection).
- Also, every mage, to a certain extent, though the Mysterium are the ones with the main focus on it. One Sourcebook provides detailed information on how their "knowledge economy" works.
Theater
Video Games
Webcomics
Web Original
- Luke Anatoray, from v2 of Open Blue.
- Shadow of Super Stories makes her living this way. Whether she has a supernatural ability for getting information or is just very good at her job has not been answered.
- Jonathan Patches of The Gungan Council can get information on anything as well as make sure no one gets certain information one doesn't want to let out.
Western Animation
- Geezy the Pegelount is one of these in the Wretched Hive of Tortuna in Galaxy Rangers. A later episode reveals that his cousin is one of Her Majesty's victims (explaining why he's no fan of hers). Fanon also suspects Doc was one of these before being "reluctantly" recruited into the Rangers.
- Mr. Cairo from Phantom2040. He only values knowledge and no amount of currency, which is probably why he hasn't told the Big Bad who The Phantom is despite the hefty reward.
|
|
