Mr Exposition - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Thank you, Mr. Exposition."

—Slappy Squirrel, Animaniacs

A character whose purpose is to explain the plot. Ostensibly, this is for the benefit of the protagonists, but most of the time their real reason for existing is to Infodump on the audience. This is why they spend so much time explaining things the protagonists already know.

In spite of the name, this is an equal-opportunity position, as the many female examples below demonstrate.

See also Captain Obvious.

Examples:

Basil Exposition (with British Intelligence) from Austin Powers, is both an obvious send-up of this type of character, and a good alternate trope name.
CJ Cregg, the White House press secretary on The West Wing. She patiently reports every single piece of news, including those with not the slightest connection to the US Government.
Reese in The Terminator explaining to Sarah why a man completely resistant to shotgun blasts (the title character) is trying to kill her. In the DVD commentary they point out that he's doing exposition (which usually brings the pace of the movie to a screeching halt), however he does it while they're on the move which works in this case.
James Bond's "M".
The nameless voice (presumably the Secretary) who provided the tape-recorded briefings on Mission Impossible.
Giles from Buffy The Vampire Slayer. In the dream sequence episode 'Restless' he even gets to deliver the exposition in the form of a song.
Samantha Carter from Stargate SG-1.
- Exposition duties were usually tag-teamed by her and Jack or Daniel and Jack. Sam (or Daniel) would give a technobabble-laden exposition of what's happening, then Jack would force them to repeat it in English.
In Star Trek The Next Generation, Data was the main choice for any Technobabble plot exposition, although really nearly any character on the various Star Trek shows was at some time forced into that role. Once she had been introduced to Star Trek The Next Generation, Guinan became the mouth through which the writers often introduced backstory information, i.e. about the Q, the Borg, etc.
- Usually, Data and Geordi did technical exposition, Worf what another ship is about to do/is doing/did, and Troi the emotional state or motives of whatever grouchy alien they ran into that week. Of course, in Real Life, exposition to the CO is what each section is supposed to be doing.
Holly and Kryten in Red Dwarf. Note the redundancy; the producers did, and when they needed to get rid of a character for the sixth season, Holly was Put On A Bus with the rationale that the exposition could be given to Kryten. The writers later found themselves in the same position again, when the newly-introduced Kochanski became Mr Exposition, and Kryten was relegated to the servile mother-figure that he'd grown out of over the course of the series.
Joel and the Robots of Mystery Science Theater 3000 humorously pointed this out while watching a movie, labeling two cop characters "Sergeant Exposition" and "Captain Backstory."
Dr. Inez Fressange of Martian Successor Nadesico abuses this trope to the point of parody: she is actually acknowledged as the "explanation woman" by the whole crew of the Nadesico battle spaceship. There have been cases where she senses her explanations are needed from several rooms/decks over, and she once uses exposition as her talent in a beauty contest.
- And in an episode where several of the crew, including Inez, find their personalities inverted from their normal ones and are all in desperate need of an explanation? She's shown in her room quietly enjoying a glass of fruit juice, not saying a word.
- Inez Fressange? Is it a coincidence?
Seira in Kaitou Saint Tail.
Ryou and sometimes Keiichiro in Tokyo Mew Mew.
- A hilarious example of this occurs with Masaya in the first episode of Tokyo Crystal Mew. He even feels the need to describe what he looked like in his Deep Blue form.
Video game example: This is the sole purpose for the existence of Travis in Killer7. As you go through each mission, he informs you why you're there and what's happened thus far. Since the Killer7 are only called in once things have degraded to where someone has to die, this is essentially Late To The Party embodied in a character. And you can never be sure if Travis (who openly despises you) is telling the truth, either...
The Doctor from Doctor Who, to such a degree as this editor wonders if he has some kind of condition...
- The Doctor always has a traveling companion from modern Earth who would be in the dark if The Doctor didn't explain everything. That seems to be the main function of the cohort, a "Watson" to his "Sherlock".
  - (Though in some cases Fan Service seems to take over as main function...)
Alfred Gogh and Miles Millar cast Alison Mack as Chloe Sullivan on Smallville because of her "rare ability to deliver large chunks of expositionary dialogue conversationally."
Col. Tigh in the current Battlestar Galactica often performs the role of Mr. Exposition, although in one episode, President Roslin subverts this by annoyedly thanking him for his insight.
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.
The bard Elan in the webcomic Order Of The Stick even has a spell called "Summon Plot Exposition" which creates dramatic illusionary pictures that accompany Elan's voice-overs.
Ardeth Bey in The Mummy Returns, which actually is quite at odds with his characterization in the first film. As Stephen Sommers says on the commentary track, "In the first film Ardeth Bey was this cool, mysterious character. Here he's just a chatterbox. Every chance he gets, it's just wave after wave of exposition."
Yuko Ichihara ends up becoming the Ms Exposition in the latter parts of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and xxxHolic, the point that some fans have begun comforting others about the recent Wham Episode by saying that "all will be explained" in the Yuko-monologue inevitably coming up in the next few chapters.
Suzumiya Haruhi No Yuutsu hangs a lampshade on this; Kyon, the sarcastic narrator, constantly tells Koizumi, the Mr. Exposition character, that he talks too much and no one cares what he has to say.
Every single character in Yu-Gi-Oh (The 4Kids Dub anyway), often to downright ridiculous lengths. Everyone feels compelled to remind one another (ie: the viewers) of the continuous effects of every card in play, the effect of a card that has already been played before in an episode (especially "Monster Reborn"), all the way to what happened two minutes ago. This expo-speak always happens at the start of episodes, (referencing previous events), which wouldn't be a bad thing if not for the fact that each episode includes a "last time, on Yu-Gi-Oh" opening bit. Also always occurs after a commercial (because, well, you know), but sometime even for no reason at all. As an example of the last type, pick any duel in the Battle City finals/semi-finals and count how many times the fact that one of the characters possesses an Egyptian God Card is mentioned. For the truly ambitious, ''drink'' every time it's mentioned, and kiss your liver goodbye.
- Subverted in the movie when Kaiba interrupts Pegasus' exposition of a card-effect with "Do you ever shut up?"
- Also Lampshaded in one episode where an opponent starts to explain the effects of Painful Choice before Kaiba cuts him off with "I know what the card does, you fool."
  - ... And then he explains it anyway
Maechen from Final Fantasy X. The difference being the fact he doesn't explain the plot. Instead, he goes in long-winded description of the areas you visit for the first time. Nicknamed "Exposition Man" on VG Recaps.
- Auron and Lulu from the same game are guilty of this at certain points, but Auron's a Badass so of course you'll listen to whatever he says, right? Right?
Subverted in FLCL by Commander Amarao. He tells Naota (and the audience) that Haruko is searching for her lover Atomsk, the pirate king (the scene is accompanied by a humanoid fire creature). Actually, Haruko wants to absorb the powers of Atomsk, which is actually a giant flaming bird. Amarao was just guessing.
Subverted in the Wheel Of Time, Robert Jordan had stated that several times characters are guessing when giving exposition so you can never tell which Forsaken is the strongest (especially between men and women), or how the hell Mat's dagger actually works. The best example, is in Crown of Swords, where the Aes Sedai accompaning Elayne, and Nyneave, tell her the Kin are a small group of women who help runaways, and the Aes Sedai use them to find the runaways. Later in the book the leader of the Kin explain that the Kin number about 2,000, and are actually a well organized group who hide their numbers so that the Aes Sedai will not notice them.
"Finally, I caught up with you! I'm a mob hitman... They call me Jimmy the Exposition."
—Colin Mochrie, Whose Line Is It Anyway
If any Marvel Universe plot has magic in it at any time whatsoever, you can bet Dr. Strange will be there to explain the nuts and bolts of how Magic A Is Magic A. Or just Deus Ex Machina the heroes out of it.
The musical Urinetown, which parodies almost anything that moves, has Officer Lockstock, the narrator, reference this trope on several occasions.
Captain Jim Brass, the Homicide detective from CSI has been affectionately nicknamed "Captain Exposition" by the fandom, even though all he does is deliver factual data on the victim du jour (such as name, occupation, family, circumstances of death...)
On the two few occasions when The Omniscient Council Of Vagueness in Neon Genesis Evangelion told anyone anything, they have been told "But I already know all of this" by the person they were speaking to. It serves solely to inform the audience, and yet it doesn't.
Nate Morgan used to fill this role in the Archie Sonic The Hedgehog comics, offering pages upon pages of technobabble-laden exposition for the "benefit" of the reader.
All the Supernatural characters have been this at some point, although recently it's been mostly Bobby being the sensible one (most notably, Tall Tales and Dream A Little Dream Of Me) and doing the explaining.
Reborn in Katekyo Hitman Reborn! does this almost every time a battle is plot-important and he happens to be watching. Most of the rest of the cast is guilty of this at various occasions as well, but it's usually Reborn that does the exposition. In fact, it's consistent enough that one can tell if a fight is plot-important when Reborn is nearby by whether he's beating people up or currently being Mr Exposition. For everything not related to the most recent level-up, there's Ranking Futa, who seems to be a recurring character primarily for random exposition.
The character of Sara on the Canadian comedy series Trailer Park Boys served this function in the early seasons, explaining many of the goings-on in the trailer park and putting things into context for the audience. Her doing this was justified by the series being framed as a documentary filmed by a camera crew following the main characters around, so it only made sense that the documentary crew would try and find a way to explain things to the audience.
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.
Mocked in the Simpsons episode Itchy and Scratchy Land:
Lisa: The flash must have scrambled their circuits!
Homer: Who are you, the narrator?
Two words: Professor Layton.
The elderly wizard Gereth Yaztromo often fulfills this role in the Fighting Fantasy 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.
Parodied in Urinetown (naturally) with Officer Lockstock.
Grave-Robber from Repo! The Gentic Opera. His first song, 'Zydrate Anatomy', introduces himself, Amber Sweet, Blind Mag, some AppliedPhlebotinum in the form of zydrate, the veritable epidemic of surgery addiction, and reveals the first of Rotti Largo's many, many plots.

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