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Mr. Exposition

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"I know! That's what I told 'em, but no! All the cruddy exposition goes to me! I've got to talk and talk and fiddle with the computer and talk some more and fiddle and talk! I feel like Obi-Wan cruddy Kenobi!"
Roddy MacStew, Freakazoid!

A character whose purpose is to provide Infodumps and explain the plot, providing Exposition for the audience's benefit. Sometimes they end up explaining things the protagonists already know. More elegant uses of this trope have a character provide important information to The Protagonist they didn't previously know, with the audience learning it at the same time.

Popular in Science Is Bad stories, where you can bet the Mad Scientist in charge will have a tape recorder with him at all times that he's always dictating his progress to. Mr. Exposition is also an essential component of the Instructional Dialogue. In spite of the name, this is an equal-opportunity position, as the many female examples below demonstrate.

The Watson, especially if Constantly Curious, may force Mr. Exposition into this role.

See also Captain Obvious, Expositron 9000, Haunted House Historian, Exposition Fairy, and Ancient Keeper. The Combat Commentator is a variation that provides color commentary for ongoing fights. Not to be confused with Mr./Ms. Fanservice, though the comparison could make for some interesting puns.

Can be very high on the Sorting Algorithm of Mortality. Expect someone to kill him off once he's done expositing. In an ongoing series, however (especially where a Mission Briefing is involved), his odds of survival tend to be better, and he'll often serve this role in an ongoing capacity.


Example subpages

Other examples:

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    Comic Books 
  • Sera, best friend and love interest of Angela, is dreadfully prone to narrate and exposit, she is also Medium Aware enough to call it what it is: blatant exposition. Also what else could she do? Angela is way too stoic even for an inner monologue.
  • Professor Scruples from Bazooka Jules provides a lot information on Julie's powers and how they work. He's even able to explain abilities she's yet to use.
  • Black Moon Chronicles: After Haazheel's death, a clone/homonculi of the person appears whose only purpose is to inform Wismerhill of his creator's last plan to bring about The End of the World as We Know It through Colony Drop.
  • All the issues of Cable & Deadpool after #13 feature Deadpool doing a 4th wall breaking recap page in the beginning of the comic. His "Little Yellow Boxes" are also filled with expository dialogue, among other musings. In other words, he's crazy so when he starts rattling on about what came before, the other characters are just relieved he isn't shooting them.
  • Thaddeus Luken of Copperhead is the local schoolteacher. He starts a conversation by lecturing on the chemical properties of planet Jasper and drones about his history during his date.
  • In Death of the Family, Batgirl ends up being the one to bring the Teen Titans and by extension the reader up to speed on what's been going on in the storyline so far.
  • Doctor Strange: Several plots involving magic also involve Dr. Strange turning up to explain the nuts and bolts of how Magic A Is Magic A. Or just Deus ex machina the heroes out of it.
  • In Elseworld's Finest: Supergirl & Batgirl, Kara explains how she showed up on Earth, joined the Justice Society and met Lex Luthor… giving much needed background information which everyone knows about In-Universe. Lampshaded by Batgirl:
    Supergirl: He was there for me from the day I reached Earth, you know...
    Batgirl: Everybody knows this story.
  • Lyssa Drak from the Green Lantern comics.
  • In a very egregious example, Mephisto spends the entire final issue of Infamous Iron Man explaining his motives and the plot directly to the reader. It's very clear that the plot was meant to play out across a longer amount of time, but writer Brian Michael Bendis had signed on at DC and was leaving Marvel. As a result, rather than organically revealing Mephisto's motivations for his actions or having Doctor Doom uncover his machinations, Mephisto just tells the reader what probably would've taken another 12 issues to play out.
  • The Inhumans in Marvel Comics (at least in their early appearances) are an entire race of Mr. Expositions. They also do recaps. A lot.
  • Batman plays this role in a lot of Justice League of America stories.
  • The Key, from DC Comics. Lampshaded and subverted in that opening up your entire mind to the universe has the side effect of causing a lot of monologuing.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1992): In the Dark World, Link discovers a shrine where he can rest before going on. As Link begins to fall asleep, a nearby tree sprouts a face and begins to tell him the story of Ganon and the Triforce. The talking trees play a similar role in the game, while the gist of the tree's story appears in the ALTTP prologue.
  • Poet Anderson: The Dream Walker has Alan Anderson serve this role to his younger brother, Jonas, who he just introduced to the Dream World. He's still somewhat new to the Dream World himself, so he's also an Unreliable Expositor.
  • In Pride of Baghdad, the turtle that Ali and Safa conveniently run into shortly after their escape from the zoo is this. He exists to explain a ton of things to both the lions and the reader about the Iraq conflict and human behaviour. Despite his knowledge of humans, he is just as incapable of comprehending their actions as the lions.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): Nate Morgan used to fill this role, offering pages upon pages of technobabble-laden exposition for the "benefit" of the reader.
  • Superman:
  • Swerve became this after being exposed to one of Brainstorm's inventions in The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye.
  • Ultimate Marvel:
    • Ultimate Galactus Trilogy: Wolverine doesn't know what had happened in Tunguska a century ago, so Colossus explains it to him.
    • The Ultimates: Kowalski explains the military stakes at the first issue, so we know (other than it being WWII) what is the fight about.

    Fan Works 
  • All For Luz Reaction: Being the only one from the My Hero Academia world, All For One acts as this to The Owl House cast about how Quirks work.
  • Always Visible: Delia's mother tells Jordan Thurlow (and readers) about how she met her second husband, who helped conceive her daughter.
  • The Agents that work for Phoenix in Akatsuki Kitten: Phoenix Corporation Overhaul. Then again, Phoenix is literally ''the author'' under a shortened username, and they are the author's minions. Honestly, half their on-screen job seems to be explaining things to the canon characters.
  • In Avengers: Infinite Wars, while Steve Rogers is the one who tells the Jedi Council about the history of the Avengers, Scott Lang also plays a part as he has recordings of the Battle of New York on his phone to give the Jedi an idea about what the other members of the team are capable of.
  • In The Apprentice, the Student, and the Charlatan's earlier chapters, Celestia and Luna fill the role, and sometimes Twilight will chip in too. Usually they're explaining what's going on to Nova Shine, and usually in large chunks.
  • In Calvin & Hobbes: The Series, Calvin and the MTM tend to provide exposition about whatever supernatural element that's currently going on.
  • This role tends to be shared by various characters in Child of the Storm, if only to help the readers keep up with all the disparate canons when things get particularly complicated, but Loki and Harry Dresden seem to do this the most. That said, Odin and Thor have their moments, as does Doctor Strange, when he ever actually bothers to explain anything. And when they aren't doing it, the Lemony Narrator tends to cover things, with Word of God explaining further in the author notes.
  • Communication has Consensus, i.e. the players themselves, explaining the story and plot of what the hell is even happening to the characters of the stories they are in.
  • The Spectre is this in the Justice League/Naruto crossover Connecting the Dots. To be fair, it wasn't his only purpose, and nobody else had an idea of what was going on, but in the earlier chapters all he did was talk.
  • Yukari is employed as this by her own admission in Fantasy of Utter Ridiculousness.
  • Fate/Gamers Only: Rikku's specialty, often explaining concepts about the Servants the cast meets and their relation to the setting, such as explaining why Cu could be summoned as a Berserker.
  • In Fate/Starry Night, Ritsuka is pleased to be able to take this role for once, explaining what Saint Quartz is to Shinji while doing his best Holmes impression.
  • Dragon Ball Z fanfic Honor Trip: Usually Cell, but other characters get in on the act, too, especially when they're explaining the science behind some of what's taking place.
  • In Inner Demons, this seems to be the only reason that Lezard was included in the story though he later upgrades to Apple Bloom's Love Interest. He knows just about everything about the Queen of Darkness prophecy and ends up explaining everything to the protagonists.
  • Kara of Rokyn has Nasthalthia Luthor narrate the whole history of the Superman/Lex Luthor feud, which she knows because she has clashed with the former's cousin in the past and is the latter's niece.
  • The Karma of Lies: After Ladybug defeats and unmasks Hawkmoth, Plagg warns Adrien that he needs to patch things up with her ASAP, explaining how her Miraculous creates a karmic backlash whenever its holder achieves a major victory. He also warns that anyone who tries to prevent this karma from reaching its designated target runs the risk of suffering its effects themselves. This neatly sums up the main conceit of the story, which Adrien completely ignores.
  • The four encounter several Mr. Expositions in The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World, much to their annoyance:
    • Most of the Guardians have this tendency, especially Spectrem.
    • When the four finally talk to the Pyar gods, Meddar Pyar spouts a huge amount of essentially worthless repetitive exposition:
      For beings with a limited amount of time to impart information, they sure were wasting a lot of it spouting rubbish.
  • In Kimberly T's Gargoyles fic "Faith, Hope and Love", MacBeth asks Brooklyn to meet with the newly-formed People for Interspecies Tolerance (a group of students interested in supporting equal rights for gargoyles) so that he can answer some of their questions about gargoyle culture and history; Brooklyn is chosen for the obvious reason that he's the least human-looking member of the clan and will help reinforce the idea that gargoyles aren't monsters, and the subtler reason that he's better at bending the truth or lying to conceal things that the gargoyles and their allies may want to keep quiet, such as Alexander Xanatos's magical potential or Demona's immortality.
  • The New Look Series has M4k30v3r, who is kind enough to explain to Sonic everything it'll put him through and why. Being a machine may justify this.
  • The Advisor from Perfection Is Overrated provides the Himes with most of the exposition about the SUEs.
  • Initially Shirayuki is Ichigo's most useful and constant source of information about zanpakuto and Soul Society in The Snow Has Stopped The Rain. The trope is played down after Zangetsu shows up and they get Rukia back, since then the job could be shared among more people.
  • Tamers Forever Series:
    • Daneel Randt and Takeru Takaishi provide the majority of the explanations for the mythology.
    • Despite her small role, Gabrielle reveals more information than the previous two characters combined.
  • Twilight for Phoenix in Turnabout Storm. Some of the stuff she explains to him are common knowledge for fans of the show, other times she explains elements that are new to the audience.
  • With Strings Attached:
    • Grunnel fills this role, but it's justified because he's bored to death and quite happy to chat with the four about anything.
    • Stal too.
    • "Beagle John" clarifies some of what's going on in New Zork.
    • The Hunter also starts out as a Mr Exposition, except that most of what he says is useless, and the four ignore him as much as possible.
  • Yugi Oh The Abridged Series: Kaiba served this role in Episode 47 when he explained the back story involving his adoptive father and himself.

    Gamebooks 
  • Fighting Fantasy: The elderly wizard Gereth Yaztromo often fulfills this role in the gamebooks, most particularly those by Ian Livingstone, explaining the latest evil threat before asking the reader to try and solve it. The reason he can't do it himself, of course, is because he's just too old.

    Podcasts 
  • The Adventure Zone: Balance has both Avi and the Director provide a good deal of exposition to the Tres Horny Boys.
  • Live From Mount Olympus has Hermes, who narrates the tale and introduces the cast (and some spoilers on occasion), while Atlas tells Perseus about the Titanomachy and the downfall of Cronus.
  • The crew of Mission to Zyxx includes protocol droid C-53 who is responsible for briefing the crew on the specifics of the planets they're exploring and people they're meeting. Given the improv nature of the show most of this exposition is dispensed post facto.
  • The Pathfinder-based The Glass Cannon Podcast features an NPC named "Thomas Exposition".
  • Residents of Proserpina Park usually has Sam or Dog be the one to explain the stories and lore behind the various inhabitants of the park.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • The announcers during a match exist to give exposition. They have to explain the holds being used, recap any pertinent information regarding the match, possibly hype any upcoming matches (usually the main event of the show), and be entertaining while doing all of it.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Amusingly, The Dresden Files role-playing game has a skill called Exposition and Knowledge Dumping, a sub-skill of Scholarship. On a successful use, the Game Master can "borrow" the Player Character in order to turn him into a Mr. Exposition about the relevant subject. This actually cuts the middleman out of the traditional RPG knowledge skill check, which usually amounts to "Player makes Knowledge check, GM Info Dumps, Player says 'Okay, I relate this to everyone else'."

    Theater 
  • The Narrator in Finale is a more philosophical version of this trope.
  • Cesare - Il Creatore che ha distrutto has Roberto explain everything about the important figures in Italy to Naïve Newcomer Angelo, which makes it justified. It also makes it so that Roberto is the person you might least expect to be the traitor who burned down the workshop.
  • The Notary in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Grand Duke. In the first dialogue he has a speech stating who the chorus are and what they're doing there, halfway through act 1 he has a song that explains the plot device on which the rest of the show hinges and in the final dialogue he facilitates the ending.
  • Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat plays this trope pretty much straight; the narrator's only purpose is to tell the audience exactly what's going on at any given moment, vacillating between extremely obvious information and occasionally useful information about the action.
  • Gringoire in the French musical Notre Dame de Paris (adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame). He spends the majority of his songs singing about the circumstances of the time, only popping into the plot once to almost get hung by a band of gypsies and get married to Esmeralda after she saved him. As soon as that's done, we never see him interact with the other characters again.
  • In Richard Wagner's Parsifal, Gurnemanz spends most of the first act explaining the scenario first to four pages and then to Parsifal.
  • Parodied in The Real Inspector Hound by the play-within-a-play's Mrs. Drudge, who answers the phone, "Hello, the drawing-room of Lady Muldoon's country residence one morning in early spring?" and "I'm afraid there is no one of that name here, this all very mysterious and I'm sure it's leading up to something, I hope nothing is amiss for we, that is Lady Muldoon and her house guests, are here cut off from the world, including Magnus, the wheel-chair-ridden half-brother of the ladyship's husband Lord Albert Muldoon who ten tears ago went for a walk on the cliff and was never seen again." And then there's the treacherous fog.
  • Show Boat has in the boarding-house scene an Irish landlady who tells the Beta Couple the long-winded story of how Gay and Magnolia have been doing the last ten years. This exposition proves superfluous when Magnolia comes in and explains her situation in her own words.
  • The musical Urinetown, which parodies almost anything that moves, has Officer Lockstock, the narrator, reference this trope on several occasions. Not to forget Little Sally.
    Little Sally: Oh, I guess you don't want to overload them with too much exposition, huh.
    Lockstock: Everything in its time, Little Sally. You're too young to understand it now, but nothing can kill a show like too much exposition.
    Little Sally: How about bad subject matter?
  • Questenberg, servant of the Holy Roman Emperor, in Schiller's drama Wallenstein. Wallenstein lampshades: "Spare us telling us from the newspapers / what we witnessed ourselves in horror!"

    Theme Parks 
  • Steven Spielberg himself serves this role to a massive extent in the pre-show of Universal Studios' E.T. Adventure ride, where he literally explains everything that's going on. Though this can be somewhat excused, as in this case he literally is addressing the audience.

    Toys 
  • BIONICLE:
    • The Turaga elders, who relate old legends about the threats that rear their ugly heads in the first few arcs. Eventually deconstructed; the third or fourth time this happens, the heroes start wondering where they're getting their information and, more importantly, why they're not telling them these things ahead of time.
    • Whenua the archivist was this for the Toa Metru team, which was acknowledged in-story. When at one point an enemy appeared he knew little of, Vakama snapped at him for being useless.

    Visual Novels 
  • The Ace Attorney series has the various assistants that go around to assist or comment on the action, and to give general plot recaps at the beginning of each chapter. Most often, it has been Maya Fey, though Pearl Fey takes her place a couple times during the second and 3rd games and she is replaced entirely by Trucy Wright in the 4th. Then Athena Cykes gets the role sometimes in the 5th and the 6th.
  • Kirei Kotomine takes up this role in the Heaven's Feel scenario of Fate/stay night, to the point of multiple lampshadings by the protagonist, who in the narration, complains about the priest's lengthy talks every single time he drops by the church.
    • Unlimited Blade Works puts Rin in the expository role, while Fate mostly splits it between the two (Kotomine for history, and Rin for the technical side of magic).
    • The same roles in Tsukihime are filled by Ciel and Arcueid, mostly on the history and nature of vampires in the Nasuverse. None of them are anywhere near as bad as Kotomine, though.
  • Spirit Hunter: NG:
    • Kaoru's an expert of the occult and the supernatural, and provides Akira with information on the various ghostly happenings in the first chapter.
    • Rosé takes over the role of the spiritual expert after Kaoru leaves, and helps Akira learn more about Kakuya, ghosts, and his own powers.
    • D-Man's collectable cards either exposit on various ghostly tales, or summarise information that Akira has gleaned about Kakuya and his general situation.

    Web Animation 
  • Broken Saints has Raimi Matthews, who also functions as Non-Action Guy, Deadpan Snarker, Sad Clown, and The Smart Guy. A man of many hats indeed.
  • Dreamscape: Keela takes this role in the flashback in Episode 7, where she explains the exact mechanics of the curse Melinda inflicted Dylan with. She says she knows a lot about curses due to her relationship with The Master of the Dammed.
  • In HFIL Raditz, as the morally compromised malefactor that has been there the longest, tends to serve this role to Cell, the newest member.
  • Homestar Runner: Parodied in the Strong Bad Email "best thing". On the Show Within a Show Limozeen: But They're in Space!, manager Teeg Dougland's dialogue mostly served to set up plot points by having him come in and say a setence starting with the phrase "I'm afraid I have some bad news, boys..."
  • In If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device, pretty much everyone takes up this mantle, depending on the topic.
    • The Emperor explains things considering the Warp, the War in Heaven and human history.
    • Kitten talks about the current Imperium and xeno races.
    • Magnus gives a long lecture about the nature of the Warp and the Chaos gods.
  • Red vs. Blue: Reconstruction:
    • Agent Washington dispenses all sorts of information about Project Freelancer and the AIs it uses. According to the DVD commentary, Church served in this role for plot recaps in the original series.
    • It wasn't nearly limited to plot recaps. Burnie (voice of Church and creator of the series) admits in the commentary that he always gave Church most, if not all, of the exposition necessary to move the plot forward since it was always a large number of lines and if necessary, he could always just redo them himself rather than call everybody back in again to do their voices for the ninth time to fill in another plot hole he just noticed. The entire rest of the cast (until Washington's appearance) was merely there for comic relief, while Church had the sole duty of carrying the entire plot around on his back. It's no wonder he was always so damn irritable.
    • Andy, being the only one who can understand the Alien, serves this role in Season 4.
  • RWBY:
    • Dr. Oobleck is the history teacher for Beacon Academy. His primary role is to educate the students, and therefore the audience, on the world of Remnant. Even when he's leading Team RWBY on a field-trip, he scatters lectures throughout their mission to explain the setting to the audience. Through him, the students and audience are introduced to the existence of a series of Faunus Wars between humanity and Faunus because the Faunus struggle with racism and equality; he explains the history of Mountain Glenn, and introduces the concept that the Grimm gain intelligence and patience as they get older and more experienced. During the Vytal Festival, he acts as one of the tournament commentators, introducing the in-universe and out-of-universe audiences to the students taking part in the competition and their abilities.
    • The World of Remnant episodes are a series of very short episodes scattered through Volumes 2-4 that give background information on the World of Remnant to explains such things as Aura, Dust, Grimm, the CCT global communications, Faunus, the different Kingdoms, the Great War and the global dominance of the Schnee Dust Company. Each volume has a different narrator who explains the information to the audience in a completely in-character manner. Salem ominously narrates the Volume 2 information on Aura, Dust and the Grimm and implying these things are connected to a dark history that humanity has been forced to forget. Ozpin gives a more optimistic narration in Volume 3 of the achievements and limitations of humanity, such as the CCT, and how endeavour brings humanity together. In Volume 4, Qrow, who stands in for Ozpin when the headmaster goes missing after Volume 3, narrates the history of the Kingdoms and the SDC, with his usual cynicism and occasionally pausing to swig alcohol. His personal animosity towards the SDC during that narration implies he might possibly be an Unreliable Narrator in places.
    • In Volume 6, this gets justified as the expositer in question, Jinn, is the spirit of the Relic of Knowledge with the ability to answer any question to the best of her ability. As a result of her ability, she answers a question that leads to a twenty-six minute long exposition on the origins of Remnant and how Ozpin and Salem became arch-enemies.
  • Sonic for Hire: Throughout a few times, Sonic brings up on how Tails constantly narrates their current situation.
    Tails: Mario must have sent these guy to get you. They'll probably come back with another crew, we should probably bring in some help of our own.
    Sonic: Thanks, Narrator.
    Tails: [deadpan] Cut to a new scene.

    Web Comics 
  • Red Mage usually does this in 8-Bit Theater, although Thief took the role when the Light Warriors were in Elfland.
  • Agents of the Realm has Jade, who talks about the nature of Agents, and Paige, who explains the local legends and the part the Agents have in the greater picture.
  • Castoff isn't one for Info Dump, but every now and then, somebody needs to explain the theory and practice of magic. Most of the time this someone is the team mage, Arianna. But in chapter 11, Sage takes over.
  • In Darths & Droids, Darth Maul serves this role, here portrayed as a private investigator telling Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon about how Senator Palpatine intended to get the Jedi to look for the Lost Orb in the Trade Federation's territory (I.E. what the GM originally planned for how his campaign would develop before Jim brought it Off the Rails), among other things.
  • Debugging Destiny has Mercury, whose Storied special ability means he knows a little bit about everything. Naturally, he spends a fair amount of time dispensing useful information.
  • In Distillum, this seems to be Sidney's job, if only because she's the one who knows anything about what's going on. Jamie has shades of it in the beginning, but he's The Narrator.
  • This is lampshaded relentlessly in DM of the Rings, a LOTR parody, in which Gandalf is made to be Mr Exposition in every way, even more than he is in the books and films. He is even referred to as Mr Exposition on a number of occasions.
  • Dragon Ball Multiverse:
    • Piccolo offers a lot of information on the battles while watching from the sidelines.
    • The South Kaioshin fills that role for a while during his fight against Majin Buu.
    • King Kai's usual role as this in the series is lampshaded in page 952.
  • Dream Catcher so far seems to have two. Ooji who really failed to be helpful, AT ALL, and Mr. Relecross who seems to know more.
  • In Dubious Company, this job was originally Walter's for the pirates and Sue's for the Imperials. After the cast expands, this gets officially dumped on Sal and Leeroy.
    Marty: Hey babe, summarize Queenie's speech for me when she finishes yapping.
  • El Goonish Shive:
    • Mr. Verres once exclaimed "I am an endless barrel of exposition!". As the creator explains, Mr. Verres, Grace and Tedd are the main barrels, but since Tedd and Grace learned most of their information from Mr. Verres, he's directly responsible for most of the expositions in the strip. Also, there are Exposition Fairies, but not in the usual sense.
    • Mr. Verres was mentored by another barrel, Adrian Raven. Being a son of a human and an immortal, he probably picked up that exposition from his parents... and experience.
    • The Whales reveal portions of how the very fabric of the universe operates. The fact that Mr. Verres (and presumably Raven) didn't even know about the existence of the Whales is noted to be a big deal.
  • Various characters from Eon's Comic have filled this role, but SSTV News anchor, Charlene McFaire is by far the most prominent example; indeed, her sole purpose has been to provide exposition on plot developments, either in the form of a recap or a condensed way of informing the readers of government decisions. Often no one in the story is even watching the news!
  • In Freefall, Florence realizes she overdoes it when she notices that the robot's eyes glazed over.
  • Claire lampshades her own expository speech in the last panel of the first page of The Fuzzy Five.
  • In Godslave, as Edith knows next to nothing about Egyptian mythology, Anpu is forced — to his dismay — to assume the position that this trope fulfills.
  • In Holiday Wars, the character of Earth Day is basically there to only give exposition at the Act I turning point.
  • Homestuck:
    • Nannasprite fills both John and the audience in on things like "why meteors?". In-universe, the Sprites as a whole were meant to be this, but Nannasprite is the one who most consistently fills the role out-universe.
    • About 6000 pages in, Calliope seems to have made it her job to, in between cryptic Foreshadowing, explain how the reality-warping game at the center of the story is supposed to work when everyone isn't going out of their way to break it.
    • Aranea gives very lengthy history lessons to everyone in sight. This is regularly pointed out and mocked by the other characters. Hell, in the Act 6 Act 3 Intermission she starts PAYING people to listen to her Info Dumps. The fact that she's never been a "playable" character in Homestuck note  could suggest that she was only created to be a walking exposition dump.
    • Rose took on the role to explain to Dave about the Scratch, Null Sessions and what they're plan is when they get there. She and Kanaya researched it and compiled all the data about their experiences (and how the game works) into a tome which winds up in Calliope's hands, edited by Gamzee, which is the source of her information.
  • I'm the Grim Reaper: Satan explains a lot about the grim reapers, their rules, and how hell works to Scarlet, since he is her boss. Doesn’t mean he tells her everything though...
  • Princess Voluptua tends to fill this role whenever she shows up in The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! As the most prominent alien character, she tends to appear in stories involving alien threats, and so usually knows more about what's going on than the Earthling cast. Has been lampshaded repeatedly that it's hard to shut her up once she starts rolling.
    "I don't lecture. I exposit."
  • Agneta gets lampshaded as Miss Exposition in Mot Jorden (Towards Earth).
    Agneta: Welcome to another sunny day on Mars... our delightful planet.
    Raymond: So it looks like we don't know what planet we're living on, Agneta?
    Agneta: For all I know, you may have become idiots overnight.
  • Rainer from MSF High is this, combined with being a Handsome Lech. He's getting more and more lampshade hanging.
  • The Order of the Stick:
    • The bard Elan even has a spell called "Summon Plot Exposition" which creates dramatic illusionary pictures that accompany Elan's voice-overs. He also cries when someone else pulls off a good plot recap.
    • Redcloak often fills this role on the villain's side, with the help of a series of short-lived, lower-ranking hobgoblins (or the Monster in the Darkness).
    • Wrecan plays this roll for a while, to the point where Belkar calls him the "Sacred Knight of the Expository Aside".
  • One of Julie's powers as a bard in Our Little Adventure.
  • In Questionable Content, Momo fills this role in regards to the history of A.I.s in the QC universe. Jeph clearly has some pretty clear ideas about the universe, and Momo is often used to share them with the audience.
  • Sluggy Freelance:
    • Parodied with Dr. Viennason. His DVD series "A Visual Guide to Timeless Space" gives pretty much all the exposition during the "Oceans Unmoving" arc... and he does it so poorly most characters consider it a form of torture.
    • Exposition in Sluggy is as natural as breathing to the characters. They don't think anything is wrong when it happens.
    • Old-Riff in the 4U City Red arc spouts exposition for weeks.
  • In Star Impact, given that boxers never explain their glove powers, physical attributes, or boxing strategies to their opponents, various characters take up this mantle when these things need to be explained to the reader. However, this duty frequently falls on Puck, who even acted as Aster's second in her Chapter 2 fight against Phoebe.
  • Any of the time travelers from TRU-Life Adventures.
  • Eugene from Weak Hero is one of the most knowledgeable when it comes to information about the various gangs, and is usually the one to get Gray up to speed on their backgrounds and workings.

    Web Original 
  • Brennus: The title character himself is prone to exposition, explaining the intricacies of the setting super-power system, and the background for various hero/villain groups to his fellow rookie-heroes (and by extension, the audience). It gets lampshaded more and more as the story goes on.
    Brennus: Pretercognitives are a particular sub-category of espers—
    Hecate:What did I say about exposition, Brennus!?
    Brennus: Two sentences or less...
  • In Crossing Kevin's Crossing most of the characters serve this fuction for the Constantly Curious narrator.
  • Gubaru from the web fiction serial Dimension Heroes, while serving a purpose as mentor and part-protector of the multiverse, serves the majority of the series as an exposition machine.
  • Captain Exposition from Protectors of the Plot Continuum has been known to appear and deliver some information on an Agent's past when said Agent is in a Heroic BSoD because of the bad Fan Fic. The information pertains in some way to why the Agent is in a Heroic BSoD.
  • Impro Fanfiction's Do-Gooders's Sailor Exposition is a parody of this; she defeats monsters by talking to them.
  • In the Whateley Universe, a lot of the teams at Whateley Academy seem to have them. Ferret of the Good Ol' Boyz, Stopwatch of the Masterminds, Foxfire of the Whitman Literary Girls (well, it's not really a superhero team). This makes sense, because Ferret is the information-finder and inventor for his team, while Stopwatch is the information-collector and inventor and obsessive control-freak leader of his team. Foxfire has the problem that several members of her group are much bigger expositors than she is, so she has to cut them off just to get in her own exposition. And Phase, for Team Kimba. If there's an answer to be given, especially in a class, you cannot shut him up.
    • In the Bad Seeds, there's Jadis Diabolik, who will frequently exposit — but generally, only after everything happens, in the denouement. (One can't, after all, be a successful child of a supervillain without knowing how to shut up for a little while.) That she also went to Montressori with Phase makes a great deal of sense.
  • Any and all contributors to TV Tropes Wiki. You could just watch these shows to see the tropes in action. But no, you want someone to explain them to you.
  • Played with in zOMG!; the expositional character who mysteriously disappears at the beginning is actually The Dragon. He reappears near the end of the game to provide more exposition, this time in the form of Just Between You and Me.

    Web Videos 
  • Hans Krebs, the Wehrmacht general in the Youtube Downfall Parodies, although he leaves the really bad news for Jodl to announce.
  • In KateModern, Sophie's main purpose is to compile recap episodes and discuss plot events with the viewers.
  • Petscop: "Tool" is the closest thing to an expositor we have.
  • Doctor Insano serves as this at the end of To Boldly Flee to explain what happened to the Plot Hole and give a heartwarming speech. When Film Brain expressed incredulity that Insano came all the way there just for a plot dump, he admits he was really there to hold them up and get the stuff they stole back.
  • Eric in TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life serves as this in the second episode by simultaneously warning James and explaining to the audience what will happen to him over the course of the story.

    Western Animation 
  • In American Dad!:
    Barb: Hi, Barb Hanson, Exposition Realty. Let me bring you up to speed. Your virus scare prompted [your neighbors] to put their house on the market. Any questions?
    Francine: No, that was very concise.
  • Slappy Squirrel on Animaniacs would sometimes mention this by name.
    Skippy: Doug the Dog?! But he hates you, Aunt Slappy! He's been trying to eat you for years!
    Slappy Squirrel: (dryly, to the camera) Thank you, Mr. Exposition.
  • In Barbie: Video Game Hero, Cutie the cloud is the in-game tutorial and tells Barbie the objective for each stage.
  • Summer Gleeson in Batman: The Animated Series. Justified as she's a news reporter and she's usually shown on a TV screen, where she's supposed to be addressing the Fourth Wall. This is not an Idiot Lecture: there must be quite a few people in her audience who are interested, else her ratings would tank and the station would have her doing something else.
  • Jérémie Belpois of Code Lyoko often ends up in this role, with generous heaping of As You Know and Technobabble. The two-part prequel, "XANA Awakens", even starts with him registering a video diary of how he discovered the Supercomputer.
  • Danny Phantom:
    • In both his appearances, Frostbite ends up explaining the current item/dilemma in order to advance the plot. He doesn't do much outside of expositions after, despite his combat-savvy skills.
    • At times, Sam Manson often covers this ground, too.
  • Dave the Barbarian: Uncle Oswidge, being the smart one, (Or, at least, being the oldest and most experienced, if not the most skilled) often details the problem facing the protagonists, such as what kind of monster is attacking or what magic item the villains are using.
  • Family Guy:
    • Brian oftentimes, making an observation to advance the plot (often political in nature) to overlap with creator Seth MacFarlane's views.
    • Used In-Universe in a Cutaway Gag where Peter narrates his life:
      Peter: I walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table. I looked with a grimace at the questionable meal Lois had placed in front of me. Of course I'd never tell her how disgusted I was with her cooking, but somehow I think she knew. Lois had always been full of energy and life, but lately I had begun to grow more aware of her aging. The bright, exuberant eyes that I had fallen in love with were now beginning to grow dull and listless with the long fatigue of a weary life. [Lois knocks Peter out; hours pass] I awoke several hours later in a daze.
  • In Freakazoid!, when Freakazoid notes that his mentor Roddy has a lot of lines in this episode, Roddy goes into a rant about being... well, Mr. Exposition.
  • Whenever there's a story in Hey Arnold!, Gerald is always the one telling it, and Sid always helps.
  • Dib on Invader Zim — or at least, Zim must think he is, since he goes into Exposition Mode when pretending to be Dib.
  • Dr. Drakken in Kim Possible.
    Drakken: Shego, at last! Pure nanotronium is mine! The smallest, most powerful energy source known to m—
    Shego: Are you for real? I was with you. I know what it is, Dr. Exposition.
  • Let's Go Luna!: The Magic Globe, who provides the kids with information about the country they are visiting in each episode.
  • Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (2023): Starting in episode two, there is a narrator who explains the backstories of the various villains who pop up in each episode. In episode six, it is revealed that the Beyonder is the narrator, and he continues to do this following the reveal.
  • In Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins, Raiden spends much of his time explaining the backstories of both the tournament and their future opponents. Justified in that as a god he is ineligible to enter the tournament directly.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • Zecora the zebra sometimes acts like this. Whenever something strange happens and none of the ponies in Ponyville know what to do, not even Twilight Sparkle, Zecora is often the one to tell the Mane Cast what's going on.
    • Spike often does this for Twilight Sparkle.
    • Twilight herself tends to grab the Exposition Ball whenever she appears in an episode but isn't the mane focus of it.
    • Celestia herself plays this role in almost every major episode she's apart of, to the point where that is basically her only role in The Movie. Ironically, the only major two-parters where she didn't slip some sort of exposition were the ones where either she was kidnapped or when she actually took matters into her own hooves... not that the latter actually helped.
  • The Simpsons
    • Mocked in the episode "Itchy and Scratchy Land":
      Lisa: The flash must have scrambled their circuits!
      Homer: Who are you, the narrator?
    • Mocked in "Treehouse of Horror IX":
      Lisa: Of course — the transplant! Somehow Snake's hair must be controlling—
      Marge: Oh please, Lisa, everyone's already figured that out.
  • South Park:
    • Parodied in the episode "Asspen" when Stan is challenged to a ski race down the K-13.
      Teen: (steps into frame) The K-13? But that's the most dangerous run in all of America. (steps out of frame)
    • Parodied when Morgan Freeman himself shows up to fulfill this role. When Stan asks him why he's always showing up to explain convoluted things, Freeman answers that every time he does so, he gains a freckle.
  • Lampshaded in Spongebob Squarepants where a glowing "Exposition!" sign appears over Spongebob's head when he says "And look! Mr. Krabs is back from his vacation!"
  • Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "How Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth". The sole function of Ensign Walking Bear is to provide background information on the ancient cultures he's an expert on.
  • Steven Universe has a lot to learn about Gem history, which the Crystal Gems (and sometimes Greg) are there to provide. Pearl seems to revel in this job, complete with holograms as a visual aide, while Garnet steps in when Pearl's not around or for subjects she has more experience in, like her future vision powers or in-depth discussions of fusion. Amethyst's contributions mostly involve blurting the occasional Awful Truth.
    • Deconstructed in one episode when Pearl tries to explain sword techniques during a spar, causing her to get distracted from her opponent. It doesn't end well.
  • Princess Ariel from Thundarr the Barbarian often explains where they are and its historical significance to Thundarr and Ookla (and the audience).
  • Time Squad: Otto, being a history whiz, usually provides context and facts about who the Time Squad is going to visit in an episode. This was lampshaded in "Billy the Baby", where it's Tuddrussel who gives the facts (since he loves Western outlaws).
    Otto: Man, I never realized how annoying that is.
  • Transformers: Prime:
    • Appears to be Optimus Prime's primary function, explaining the writers' "it stands to reason" justification for the events that are already in motion or are about to follow.
    • Ratchet, usually from a historical context.
  • Wakfu:
    • Nox, the Big Bad in Season 1, provides plenty of exposition... mostly by soliloquizing. Or through his own "clockwork puppet show". Which is still perfectly in character, considering that he's insane. And damn creepy while doing so.
    • Ruel Stroud, being the oldest and most well-traveled of the Five-Man Band, otherwise fulfill this role for the heroes about the various places they visit or people they meet. And he's doing it mostly for free!
  • In WordGirl, there is a nameless character with the sole purpose of alerting the heroine of criminal misdeeds in other parts of town. (He is usually looking for the police station and just so happens to stumble across mild mannered Becky Botsford.
  • In Wreck-It Ralph, Fix-It Felix Jr. acts as this for Sergeant Calhoun since her game was only plugged in the past few days, and doesn't yet know what "Going Turbo" means or what's at stake if he doesn't get Ralph back.


Alternative Title(s): Mister Exposition, Miss Exposition, Ms Exposition, Mrs Exposition

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Bugs explains

Bugs Bunny tells Michael Jordan why he was brought to their world in great detail.

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