Chekhov's Gunman - Television Tropes & Idioms

Naruto has Shisui Uchiha, who's only purpose is initially to be the person Itachi killed off-screen in order to gain the Mangekyo Sharingan. Over 200 chapters later, we learn that Danzo stole his Sharingan eye.
- Let us not forget Tobi, who initially was simply a goofy member of the Akatsuki. Later, we find out that he is the true leader of Akatsuki, and is also Madara Uchiha.
As the page quote states, Sai, Kaede, Madoka and Arisu from Kidou Tenshi Angelic Layer. They don't have as big of a role as most examples, though, save Sai, although Kaede does make an appearance in Chobits (dead).
Selim, son of King Bradley in Fullmetal Alchemist manga. Seems like a harmless kid, but later revealed to be the most dangrous homunculi from all seven homunculi, the Pride.
- In a more minor example, with more immediate payoff, Roy Mustang is initially introduced in Chapter 4 of the manga as seemingly nothing more than an extra to set the scene for the current story, before being revealed as a major character at the end.
- The first anime Fullmetal Alchemist is fond of this trope, bringing back characters from the beginning of the series who seemed like Filler Villains as important characters towards the end.
- Wow, we forgot Yoki (introduced as a Filler Villain in chapter 3, returns and joins Scar in chapter 33)? His introductory chapter is even reduced to a mere mention in episode 4 of Brotherhood before returning 9 episodes later.
- Selim is this in the first anime too, the difference is he ends up being directly responsible for Mustang beating Bradley.
- And let's not forget the even more minor Lyra, who appears in episode 4 of the first anime as Yoki's assistant and later has her body stolen and becomes host to the biggest of the Big Bads.
- In the chapter of the manga where Winry arriving at a train station, Izumi and her husband can be seen in the bottom right of a panel perusing the timetable. When they both arrive later, the author even puts a little footnote that encourages the reader to check back in the earlier volume.
- Probably the most extreme example in the manga would be the man in white, an unnamed alchemist that shows up very irregularly.
In an early story arc of Blade of the Immortal a character is introduced, but disappears at the end of the arc with their story apparently self-contained and complete. Many, many volumes later, guess who shows up at the side of Complete Monster Shira? Kawakami Araya's son Renzo.
Mishio in Makoto's arc of Kanon, and in the Kyoto Animation version, all the major girls.
In Princess Tutu, the character Autor is always hanging around the library and later on in the background of scenes with Fakir. He later not only divulges an important plot point, but saves Fakir from a cult with a book.
- This troper's friend, while watching one of the earlier episodes where he shows up, declared "shiny-glasses-guy better either fire his Chekhovs Gun or GTFO."
In Magic Knight Rayearth, the girls are given a seemingly pointless "mascot", Mokona, to accompany them on their quest. In the second series, it is revealed that Mokona is literally God.
- Pointless? How many other mascots are both a Bag Of Holding and a camper, all in one?
In Shakugan No Shana, a distinctive, heavily-burdened meido is occasionally shown trudging through exotic locales without any explanation; she eventually appears in the main setting and is introduced as an important character. In the movie, which is a remake of the first arc, she walks past the camera (and turns to look at it) in two news reports in the span of a day — once in the Gobi Desert and once on Mount Everest.
The Pokémon Special manga is full of them. Nearly every minor character introduced early on becomes important to the plot later. The biggest example would be the little girl Red saves randomly in one chapter of the first Arc who later turns out to be Yellow, the main character of the second arc.
- Similarly the Gold/Silver arc ends with Professor Oak confronting an offscreen child who wants to be a Pokemon trainer, in what is seemingly a throwaway homage to his opening monologues from the first Pokemon games. However, a few hundred chapters later in the Emerald arc, it's revealed that the nameless child was actually Emerald and that confrontation was part of his long journey towards becoming a Pokemon trainer.
On Sailor Moon, the episode that introduced Sailor Venus had her appear (in civilian form) in the background of a scene earlier in the episode. The camera also did a long pan on her and Artemis to make sure you didn't miss her. So it wasn't much of a surprise when she showed up later saving the Sailor Senshi. Of course it was more of a surprise in the English dub, because they cut the long pan entirely and only the most eagle eyed of viewers could have spotted her before she got covered by a CGI screen transition.
- A shot of her as Sailor V actully appeared in the first episode (cut from the dub sadly) while Usagi and Naru are talking about her latest heroic deeds. She's referanced every so often from then on until she appears many episodes later in person breifly as a civillan and then Sailor Venus (wearing the Sailor V mask) as mentioned above
- On the Manga side, throughout Codename Sailor V the other Sailor Senshi appear with minor background speaking roles, though not directly interacting with Minako. The Live action has a similar prequel known as Act Zero: Birth of Sailor V where they have minor background roles (Except Usagi who is saved by Sailor V)
Many, many people in Mahou Sensei Negima. A few of the more notable ones:
- The first time Evangeline is mentioned, it's in a note written by her picture in the class roster. Two volumes later, she appears again as the manga's first real antagonist. A few volumes after that she saves Negi's butt during the Kyoto arc. After that, Negi eventually begins training under her. She is one of the most powerful mages in existence, after all
- Takamichi is introduced as merely the teacher that Negi takes over for. Turns out he's an extremely famous mage, and exceptionally powerful combatant who knew Negi's father.
  - There's also a few panels of him transporting into Mundus Magicus. This isn't mentioned again until 70+ chapters later.
- Chao Lingshen. Yes, merely saying the name is a spoiler. First seen hawking her restaurant's food in the first chapter of the manga, she goes on to be the Big Bad of the Mahora Festival arc. She's also Negi's descendant.
- At least half a dozen of the other girls in Negi's class qualify, too.
  - Remember Fate? That white-haired kid who petrified everyone in Kyoto? He's the Big Bad.
  - Nope. Turns out, as of the recent chapters, he's actually The Dragon to the (persumably) real Big Bad, who was defeated twenty years ago by Nagi, but is apparently Not Quite Dead.
One Piece is chockede full of these, given that Oda planned the whole story from the start and had all characters ready in place since he planned One Piece to last only five years, only to find himself enjoying it too much and having far more support than he imagined. People that were chilling in the background or just mentioned in passing will turn out to be vitally important to the plot. There are a lot of examples, but perhaps the best example is also the most recent. During a battle, Buggy the Clown relates his relationship to Shanks in the form of a flashback, and it opens with an argument between him and Shanks being broken up by the ship's first mate, who appears in two panels and is not mentioned again. Almost 500 chapters later, we learn that this man is Silvers Rayleigh, who is both the man that the straw hats need to alter their ship for undersea travel, and the former first mate... of Gold Roger!
- Almost equally sneaky is the Laboon arc. The Straw Hats end up meeting a depressed whale the size of an island, and Crocus, the old man who takes care of the whale. We find out that Laboon's depression comes from the fact that his old crewmates left him and never came back. It's assumed that they all died or fled the Grand Line. As we learn in the Thriller Bark Arc, the entire crew did die. However, one of them came back. Brooke's Devil Fruit revived him as an afro-sporting skeleton, whose only remaining purpose in life is to fulfill his promise to Laboon, which leads to him joining the Straw Hats. Oh, and Crocus was another member of Gold Roger's crew at some point, or knew him, or something. This major point is one of the big problems with 4kids' choice to cut the Laboon arc out of their dub of the anime.
  - Regarding Crocus, Luffy asked him to be their doctor soon after learning he'd been a ship's doctor once, and was turned down. Rayleigh reveals that Crocus journeyed with them for three years, with the goal of locating Brook's crew, to keep Roger's illness at bay
- Oda loves these so much that he might even be sleeping with them. A presumably bad Marine official that was introduced in Koby and Helmeppo's Chronicle of Toil, was many chapters later shown to not only be the person that cornered Gol D. Roger several times, but also Luffy's grandfather. Then there was the mysterious Dragon that helped the Straw Hats in chapter 100; he was later revealed to be a famous revolutionary and (much later) Luffy's father.
- Koby and Helmeppo themselves qualify. They were introduced in the very first chapter, and came back over 550 chapters later after they Took A Level In Badass.
- In the beginning of the Arlong Arc, Jinbei, one of the Shichibukai was mentioned. This was in 1999. He made his first appearance in the Impel Down arc. In 2009.
- On Jaya Island, three men appear causing trouble around a town. Not only are they part of the Blackbeard Pirates, an incredibly powerful pirate crew, the random bar patron that Luffy almost got in a brawl with is one of the series' Big Bad.
AIR has a crow (raven?) that is introduced early on and inconspicuously follows the main characters around throughout the first 3/4ths of the show. After the show invokes Anachronic Order, the story starts over from the beginning focused around the crow, a reincarnation of Yukito named "Sora", and his instrumental contributions to the plot.
A major antagonist in Katekyo Hitman Reborn largely responsible for the hunt on the hero's family (and the hero's death-in-the-future) is revealed to be Irie Shouichi, a seemingly random kid who appeared in one chapter to be traumatized by the wacky antics of the hero's family fourteen volumes ago.
- Subverted now, since it was all a very, very complicated Batman Gambit, co-produced by the allegedly deceased hero himself.
- But now you have the even more inconspicuous Kawahira-ojisan who was only mentioned in passing by I-pin OVER 20 VOLUMES AGO as a man she DELIVERED RAMEN TO!
Kamemon in Digimon Savers. All he does is silently wander around DATS headquarters serving tea, until it turns out he's just shy, and is actually the Digimon partner of Yushima, local head of DATS and the Cool Old Guy who randomly shows up to give Masaru advice. Even after that, he's revealed as an agent sent by Yggdrasil to spy on humans. Doubles as Lets Get Dangerous when he gets to show off his later evolutions, Gawappamon and Shawujingmon.
Kyouran Kazoku Nikki features an odd girl with pink hair dressed like a butterfly who can often be seen in the background for the fist 12 episodes. Then comes episode 13, where she is finally introduced: she is Hiratsuka Raichou, considered by Ouka's Supernatural Phenomenon Treatment Bureau to be their biggest mistake and "The Empire's biggest traitor". Despite this, she has somehow become the Head of the Bureau, and is therefore the person in charge of "Operation Cozy Family", with all signs pointing to her as a future Big Bad.
- MASSIVE double-take on that name. They can't be talking about this person, can they?
Maruko "Marco" Reiji, quarterback of the Hakushuu Dinosaurs, is introduced at the beginning of the Kantou arc in Eyeshield21 as a smooth, though somewhat cowardly player. Later on, his team becomes the final and most challenging opponent the Devilbats face in the Kantou Tournament.
- Not to mention Musashi, the player who won the Christmas Bowl for the Devil Bats, who was originally introduced as the no-name carpenter working on the team's club house long before it was revealed that he was one of the founding members of the Deimon Devil Bats.
- The Ha-Ha Brothers, as well, were originally the nameless bullies tormenting Sena in the first chapter before disappearing for some time and eventually being pressured into joining the Devil Bats as offensive linemen during the game against Zokugaku.
In the 9th volume of the the manga Rave Master Lucia Raregroove appears in a flashback. He and his mother are promptly killed off as part of his father's Freudian Excuse for Jumping Off The Slippery Slope. However, in the very same volume King pulls a Heel Face Turn, leading to the obligatory Heroic Sacrifice, leaving the manga without a Big Bad, with the story less than 1/3 completed. A few chapters later, guess who shows up to take over the role of Big Bad for the rest of the story's run? Turns out, Lucia was Not Quite Dead, after all. His mom was Killed Off For Real, though, as far as anybody knows.
- Also Resha, who get's mentioned by Deerhound a little while before her masive significance to the story is revealed, and Saga Pendragon, who comes up as the one who made the prophecy about the 'two winds meeting' and later turns out to be the reason Resha faked her death to be able to aid the future.
That young, redheaded train conductor from Baccano! doesn't seem remotely important at first. We mean, he's just a Red Shirt whose only distinction is being the first to be killed on the train, right? Er, not quite. In episode nine we learn that neither of the corpses that Jacuzzi found were his — they were his victims'. Conductor guy turns out to be the Rail Tracer that has been picking off the Lemures and White Suits throughout the series. And that's not even half of it...
If you thought that Michelo Chariot and Sir Gentle Chapman were one-time rivals for Domon Kasshu... boy, were you wrong. Michelo joins the Devil Gundam group and later Gentle Chapman is revived as a DG zombie by them
Anyone who has a name in Suzumiya Haruhi. Except Those Two Guys.
- The band members in Episode 12 "Live Alive" appear in the background throughout the episode.
In the first chapter of Get Backers, there's this snotty brat who shows up when Ban and Ginji are ten yen short of the fee to get back their recently-towed car. He says he'll give them ten yen if they retrieve his Final Fantasy game, and they end up getting beat up and never think about it again... until volume 14, when the exact same thing happens, and Ten Yen-kun turns out to be a missing kid that our heroes will be hired to "get back" later that day.
In Monster, Johann and Anna Liebert are briefly shown on Tenma's TV as the children of a foreign trade adviser who successfully managed to flee East Germany.
Godannar has three examples that span the entire series:
- The first is Tetsuya Kouji, whose mech gets blown to smithereens in episode 1, leaving him in the hospital for most of the series. He shows up as a Big Damn Hero in the last arc.
- The second is Anna's missing father, who is mentioned in an early episode and then pretty much does the same thing as Tetsuya is the final arc. And the kicker? This is a double example, since he was also the priest performing the main heroes' wedding in the first episode.
- Thirdly, the mecha technician Hayashi, who has a Distressed Damsel moment in episode 2, and thereafter serves no purpose other than a comically perfect relationship with fellow tech Morimoto. Turns out in the Distant Finale that she is the key to the human race's survival, precisely because she had that Distressed Damsel moment at the start.
Bleach just pulled off a massive example of this. Remember way-back-when, during the Soul Society Arc when the Big Bad Aizen's evil plot had just been revealed and he began his ascent into Hueco Mundo by virtue of some Hollow assistance. The sky tears open and a large number of Gillian burst out. However, as the series progresses, "something else" appears in the sky behind the mass of Menos, something that looks like nothing more than the outline of a closed eyelid. This aspect of that scene was seemingly forgotten by the author and even by the fandom and has almost never been mentioned again. However, as of the latest chapter, the Arrancar, Wonderweiss (himself a character who has been suspiciously absent from the plot until now) appeared out of nowhere, accompanied by a massive entity who appears to be the one whose existence was hinted at way back in the Soul Society arc. The interesting timing of this development has lent further credence to the current Epileptic Tree that suggests that Kubo Tite is actually an avid reader of this website and gets some of his story ideas from the Wild Mass Guessing and It Just Bugs Me pages.
- And who could forget that in the first chapter of Bleach, on the colourpage, one can find Shinji Hirako... who doesn't get introduced until nearly 200 chapters later. Also, the Arrancar who are briefly shown right after the Memories in the Rain arc, only to become the antoganists very far in the story.
- Aizen himself counts. He's introduced early in the Soul Society Arc as one of the Loads And Loads Of Characters who are brought in, and promptly gets murdered. He turns out to be the Big Bad.
Ange Ushiromiya is very conspicuously name-dropped in the first arc of the Umineko No Naku Koro Ni VN, but is not seen in that arc at all. She only starts to play a role in the third arc, and is in fact one of the most important characters (excluding Battler and Beatrice themselves) in the fourth arc.
- Ange isn't the only one. In fact, Episode 1 contains references to every other Episode so far. Other notable character namedrops include Gaap and Goldsmith, which actually are pretty inconspicuous at the time.
The main character of Mai-HiME, Mai, is conspicuously absent for most of Mai-Otome, which features almost all of the characters from the former. She only shows up a couple of times: once on a poster in the background of a shot, and as a silhouette during a narration of her untrue tragic backstory. She shows up in one of the last episodes and becomes a key character in the final battle. Subversion: Tate (Mai's love interest in Mai-HiME) also appears as a silhouette during said backstory, but the story isn't true after all and he never actually shows up or becomes important.
In an early chapter of the Baba Yaga arc, Kid and Maka notice the presence of two people following them. One of whom is a monkey, which both find funny. All we're told is that, though Shinigami told Medusa otherwise, the Shibusen group is being followed by Death Scythes and their meisters, although it appears to just be Azusa with her long-range communication/sniping sklls. Chapter 59 sees Maka being saved from Medusa by the appearance of a monkey and a man in a bear suit, who turn out to be the South American Death Scythe Tezcatlipoca and his meister Enrique (the monkey).
The woman who's skirt keeps getting flipped in Gate Keepers. She saves the Commander and his secretary in the final episode.
Gundam 00 has Lyle Dylandy, who is shown as Neil's estranged twin brother of sorts. He became Neil's Backup Twin as the new Lockon Stratos in the second season.
The first shot in the first episode of Darker Than Black shows a girl in a white dress standing at the edge of a lake and looking at the stars. This isn't given any explanation, and as the scene immediately cuts to a Batman Cold Open, viewers are likely to ignore it... until episode 11, when Hei starts panicking when he sees an illusion of her in the Gate. Turns out she's his Dead Little Sister: a Person Of Mass Destruction, the reason for the Heaven's Gate explosion, and the reason for both her brother's powers and his personality.

In Spider-Man, Norman Osborn was originally introduced as a nameless member of Mr. Jameson's club, and got upgraded to nameless friend of Jameson a while later. While he got a good deal of mostly non-speaking background appearances, he was barely noticed until he was revealed to be Harry Osborn's father about 2 years after his first appearance. 2 issues later he was revealed as the Green Goblin, who had been an active villain in the series for years.
In the Fall of Chtulhu comics by BOOM! Studios, a character with no speaking lines at all who can be spotted in a lot of backgrounds throughout the whole story turns out to be the final overmind (though not a villain per se) who orchestrated the whole story through a Xanatos Roulette.
The Joker during Infinite Crisis. First seen torturing King and asking him why he wasn't invited to join the Society. Is told that he's considered too unpredictable, and kills King out of anger. Not seen for the next hundreds of pages or so. Guess who kills Alexander Luthor Jr.?
A zombie Deadpool appeared in Marvel Zombies, but only as an extra without dialogue. Later on, he plays a main role in the series. Similarily Black Bolt appeared numerous times in the series, but doesn't get an actual role until much later.
The first page of Watchmen features a red-haired man holding a sign that reads "The End Is Nigh." He appears a few more times and doesn't seem very important— until Rorschach's mask comes off halfway through.

Throughout the movie Office Space, Milton's storyline is seemingly unconnected to the main plot, as inconvenience after inconvenience roll his way and he occasionally mutters a threat to burn down the building. In the end, he makes good on his threat, destroying the evidence of the main cast's embezzlement (while also stealing the money himself) and setting up for a happy ending.
In The Dark Knight, the camera pays a certain amount of attention to Jim Gordon's fellow policewoman Ramirez. Near the end, cue The Reveal that Ramirez was the corrupt cop who drove Rachel to the place where she would die. The viewers who were completely sure she was a Captain Ersatz of Rene Montoya were either outraged or relieved.
- A bit of a Double Subversion in fact. At one point in the film, Joker says he'll blow up a hospital if citizens let a certain man live. Batman asks Gordon to look for cops with relatives in hospitals, thinking they may attack the man. Observant viewers will remember that Remirez's mother is in the hospital. She does not attack the man, subverting Chekhov's Gunman for the moment.
In Yellow Submarine, Jeremy Hillary Boob Ph.D is introduced very conspicuously, complete with a character-introduction song. He then plays no role except light comic relief, and is kidnapped shortly after his introduction. In the end, he defeats the Blue Meanies once and for all, causing their leader to pull a Heel Face Turn by... making flowers grow all over his body.
City of God features this type of character in Knockout Ned's story. The character Otto is seen briefly when Knockout Ned murders his father at the bank. In this case, the gunman is literally a gunman.
In the film The Hunt for Red October, the submarine's cook suspiciously lingering in the background when the political officer's body is bagged is at last revealed to be the saboteur.
- Played by the same actor who is finally revealed to be the hitman in The Bodyguard!
Lampshaded in The Amateurs. Two characters are having a discussion about who they want in their porn movie (don't ask), and discuss that one character's brother is out of town, and worry about how tough the brother is and what he would do if he found out. Eventually, the narrator steps in and says, "OK, we know you're not idiots, you've probably guessed by now that the brother is going to be important later."
Wayne's World parodies the Scooby Doo version by introducing "Old Man Withers" briefly and early; later on, in one of the endings, he turns out to be the villain.
In Training Day, Hoyt breaks up an attempted rape early on and picks up the victim's dropped wallet. Later, after Alonzo stabs Hoyt in the back and gives him up to the Latino gang, they discover he still has the wallet on him and it saves his life - the girl who almost got raped was the cousin of the gang leader.
In Stranger than Fiction, while the movie is introducing the main character, Harold Crick, it also introduces two seemingly unimportant characters for flavor: a boy that has just been given a new bike, and a woman searching for a new job. Throughout the film they appear randomly as they go about their day-to-day lives with very little fanfare, until the end, when Harold is nearly killed saving the boy from being hit by a bus (driven by the woman on her first day on the job) after he falls off his bike in front of the bus stop. It turns out that the writer of the story Harold was the main character of had been foreshadowing their appearance the entire time.
In Changeling, a young Canadian on a warrant for illegally entering the US is briefly mentioned. He is later pivotal to the plot, when he says he was coerced into killing several children, and identifies Walter Collins as one of his victims..
Why would The Rock be playing a seemingly unimportant, friendly agent in Get Smart? It's not because he's the mole, is it?
Charlize Theron is a bit too big of a star to merely play a disapproving housewife in Hancock.
The cat in the film adaptation of Coraline.
A literal example of this trope reveals the hero of The Good, The Bad and The Weird
Jigsaw from Saw is almost the poster example of this trope. He gets introduced and shown in the middle of the movie for 5 seconds as a dying cancer patient and poses dead throughout the entire movie in the bathroom, and then at the end of the movie gets up and confirms Adam having lost his game.
In Cemetery Man, Francesco's friend Franco seems a bit character. All that happens between the two is a bunch of phone conversations in which they muse about life and the very slow churn of gossip in the town. However, every time Francesco meets his friend in person, Franco doesn't seem to acknowledge his presence. This is a very important detail.
Carlitos Way. Benny Blanco, the guy Carlito roughs up kills him as he was about to escape.
Scudder in Maurice- in the book he's foreshadowed subtly several times, in The Film Of The Book, he gets one awkward scene where he (as a random servant) is asked by name to do some menial task.

Something of a bizarre usage in Dan Abnett's Warhammer 40000 novels, where his early Gaunt's Ghosts stories namedrop characters who he would later develop in future novels, but his Word Of God reveals that he hadn't actually planned so far ahead. For example, comments made regarding Inquisitor Gideon Ravenor, who would eventually get his own novels, from the Gaunt's Ghosts Omnibus The Founding:
"... first mention of Ravenor (who could have guessed where that would lead to)...."
Literary example: The Harry Potter books have contained several Chekhov's Gunman characters. Sirius Black was mentioned in the very first chapter and then not heard of again until the third book, where he became very important. After five books, Ginny was promoted from "Sidekick's little sister" to "Love Interest". Rowling's fans have now been trained to spot Chekhov's Gunmen to the extent that a popular guess for the identity of the "Half-Blood Prince" of the sixth book's title was Mark Evans, a young boy mentioned in passing in book five and thought to be significant because his surname was the same as Harry's mother's maiden name. He turned out to be completely insignificant, as the author explained on her website.
- Also from Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter fans sussed that RAB was Regulus Black, the brother of Sirius briefly mentioned in Order of the Phoenix, with so little trouble, some fans argued against it because it was too obvious. Note that Regulus was mentioned all of twice in the series up to that point; we're talking some very attentive fans here.
  - He was simply the first person or one of very few with a first name starting with R and last name starting with B. With initials, it's too obvious, so if you start playing I Know You Know I Know with the author you have to consider people with five names who might go by three, or people called Dick who might really be named Richard or whatever. but if his initials had been left out of the note, very few people would ever have guessed him.
- Also, if you pay attention, the Lovegood family gets mentioned early in book four, while Luna didn't become an important character until the next one.
- Mundungus Fletcher had been getting small, one-time mentions as early as Chamber of Secrets, only becoming even slightly important to the plot in Order of the Phoenix.
- Mrs. Figg is introduced in the first book as Harry's babysitter, and we hear very little of her afterward. She's revealed to be a Squib in book five, and is the lone witness in Harry's Ministry Hearing.
- You forget the first appearance of Aberforth Dumbledore as the barman of the Hog's Head Tavern in Order of the Phoenix.
- The film makers wanted to leave Kreacher out of Order of the Phoenix entirely, but JKR told them that he would become very important later.
  - There are a surprising number of fanfics by disappointed fans, rewriting (book) so that (throwaway name) becomes important.
- The savvyness of Potter fans in general meant many were delighted to realize, on rereading, that "that awful boy" Pentunia refers to in OOP, who taught Lily about dementors, is not James, as is assumed by Harry and the reader, but Snape.
CS Lewis in the sixth volume of The Chronicles Of Narnia has a particularly devious one. Jill and Eustace are sent to look for the kidnapped King Caspian's son. Halfway their journey to the place where the prince disappeared, they find a delightful young damzel escorted by a silent knight who doesn't show his face. If you haven't read the book, you have correctly guessed by now that the knight is the prince that they were looking for. However, the damzel is, in fact, the Big Bad that appears to the children to point the direction of a castle inhabited by giants for whom, humans are refined cuisine delights. And the children never even suspect about the identity of the two strangers until the climax of the book.
In Sandy Mitchell's first Ciaphas Cain short story, we are introduced to Cain's rather smelly and loyal aide Jurgen, who doesn't look like he'll have much relavence except for jokes on how he puts people off with his atrocious hygiene standards. Later on, it turns out Jurgen is an extremely potent "blank," someone who negates psychic powers and harms daemons simply by being in proximity to them, and his becomes a constant and critical plot point throughout the rest of the novels. His absolute loyalty and obedience to Cain also play important roles.
The Dresden Files is very prone to this - the main opponent of a book will almost definitely be someone who was introduced in an earlier book, quite possibly Grave Peril.
- To be fair, Harry is specifically told more than once that a LOT of stuff went down at that time, much of which he was completely unaware of. One such mention was that his little escapade was among the LEAST important of the events there. I'm still waiting for Ferrovax to show back up. It's too good to pass up, although he may end up being the ultimate subversion of this trope
  - To be fair to Butcher, introducing Ferrovax as a villain would be a bit too much. Harry can take down big bruisers, sure, but this troper recalls Ferrovax as being described as phenomenally out of Harry's league. He could crush Harry like an eggshell. By blinking at him.
  - But so was the skinwalker, and it still got sent off howling. Admittedly, somebody else did a lot of the work, but that's generally considered a fair tactic in Dresden Files terms.
  - Point of order: He Who Walks Behind is an Outsider. Harry kicked its ass. A dragon? Please.
- Turn Coat has another major one: The obnoxious little secretary wizard who tries to get Harry to sign for a folder he was getting off the record turns out to be (one of) the traitor(s) on the Council. And he was actually trying to get Harry to sign because he was using special ink for signatures to screw with the wizards' minds.
- Said character was actually introduced as far back as Summer Knight in passing.
Butcher also does this a bit with Codex Alera - only the gunman turns out to be a "gunspecies". Tavi and Kitai go into the Wax Forest for a test and end up not only encountering the wax-spiders, but also an unusual new creature The Vord queen. They're mentioned in passing during the first book - but show up in each new one, getting more dangerous each time.
Early on in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Sissy chats with a nameless policeman who tells her his wife is an invalid. A few years later, her sister Katie meets a policeman named McShane, whose wife has tuberculosis. He keeps track of her, and they marry several years later after both their spouses have died.
American Gods: Shadow's old cellmate, Low Key Lyesmith. Keep in mind that Norse gods play a huge role in the book, and he is actually Loki Lie-smith.
In the Discworld book, Thief of Time, the milkman Ronnie Soak is mentioned here and there. Later, it turns out that Soak is Kaos, the fifth horseman of the apocalypse who left before they became big.
In Tad Williams' Otherland series, the side plot involving Olga Pirovsky is treated with a great deal of significance even though it's not initially apparent how her mysterious headaches have anything to do with the main story. Even when she's tasked by Sellars to infiltrate the headquarters of J Corp, it seems like her role is fairly straightforward. Then comes The Reveal, and she turns out to get the biggest Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming in the whole series.
Ezra Jennings from Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone is the assistant to Dr. Candy, himself a side character. Both of them, but especially Jennings, are more important to the plot than the reader might first think.[[/spoiler
Emile Zola loved to use this trope in his Les Rougon-Macquart series. A character mentioned in passing in book one and described by his father as a forgettable good-for-nothing shows up as the main character in books 10 and 11. Another one mentioned in passing in book 3 is the main character of book 14. The pattern repeats itself throughout the books. Things get even more confusing when you find out that the books do not follow in chronological order and that the timlines of most of them intersect in one way or the other. Trying to keep up with who is doing what and is important in which book can become a nightmare.
Early on in ''The Lord of the Rings, Old Gaffer Gamgee mentions his son, Sam.
- Not to mention Bormir's passing references to his father, the Steward of Gondor, who becomes a major charcter in The Return of the King.
In Silas Marner, the character Godfrey Cass is seemingly of no direct importance to the main plotline, until his brother robs Silas, and then his secret daughter ends up in Silas's care. Small world!
This Troper is shocked that The Wheel of Time series has not yet been mentioned. Every named character in the book will return with greater importance latter on. Every. Last. One. It's even justified by the fact that the three main characters bend chance, circumstance, and the fabric of the universe itself simply by existing.
Atlas Shrugged: Who is John Galt? The unnamed minor character standing in plain sight for six hundred pages, rather than a rhetorical question.
The Stars My Destination, in a way. Just keep an eye out for the doctor in the dream Dagenham subjects Gully to.
A head of one of the smuggling organizations with a subplot in The Thrawn Trilogy has bodyguard, and in one line he calls her Shada. She's good at her job. Zahn later wrote a short story called "Hammertong", in which she was an all-around agent who was one of the many people who helped get the Death Star plans to Leia. In the Hand of Thrawn duology written five years after The Thrawn Trilogy, Shada Du'kal accompanies Talon Karrde on his search for a certain document, and has her own Mystral subplot.
In J.C. Hutchins' 7th Son trilogy, characters like Special K, Peppermint Patty and Klaus Bregner get throwaway mentions only to become very important later on.
When first introduced in Warrior Cats Into The Wild, Littlecloud is just a small, seemingly unimportant apprentice from Shadow Clan, but later becomes the Shadow Clan Medicine Cat after Runningnose and a good friend to Cinderpelt.
In The Silmarillion, Lúthien Tinúviel is introduced off-hand by Tolkien simply as the daughter of Thingol and Melian, but later, as we all know, plays a major part in retrieving a Silmaril by owning Sauron's face and tricking Morgoth himself and proving to be totally Badass.
In Red Storm Rising, the Soviet Union, suddenly faced with a crippling oil shortage, decides to conquer the Middle East for oil. To do this, they first need to eliminate the threat NATO posed to the operation. Their plan was to detonate a bomb within the Kremlin, killing several staff members and 8 children from the city of Pskov, then blame it on West Germany and invade, hoping that the other western nations would object to being bled white to defend what they would see as a terrorist regime. The funeral is described in great detail, and the viewpoint character of the segment, a non-voting politburo member named Sergetov, focuses on a grief stricken captain of paratroopers, whose daughter's body was so mutilated that her face was draped in black silk for the open-casket ceremony. Near the end of the book, the chairman of the KGB and Sergetov join up with the most senior surviving Soviet general (most of the rest had been shot for failure)in a coup to prevent the deployment of nuclear arms at the battlefront. After taking power, the general turns to the KGB man and the following conversation takes place (paraphrased):
General: "By the way Comrade Lidov, have you met my new aide? He had a daughter in the Young Oktoberists."
KGB Chief: "Your point?"
General: "His regiment is based in Pskov."
Aide: "For my little Svetlana, who died without a face" *fires*
Matthew Reilly tends to introduce these early in the book when they become useful.
- Ice Station has Trever Barnaby, Jack Wash and Chuck Koslowski mentioned in Schofield's thoughts about his mission. O. Niemeyer also turns up early in an investigation about the events of the book and is currently MIA, but turns out to be a subversion because he died in a plane crash.
- Temple has Will's brother Martin Race, supposed to be working with the team remotely.
- Six Sacred Stones introduces Jack West's brother in law and previous neighbour in a flashback.

Just who the heck was that no-name crewman on Star Trek Enterprise?? Nobody important, just a time-agent from a thousand years in the future who's secretly defending the Enterprise and its crew from interference from other time-agents trying to alter the timeline. Nothing really big...
NCIS is a bit of a repeat offender on this one. If someone gets a line but doesn't seem to be contributing to the main plot otherwise, they did it. (If the writers try to hide their non-involvement by stuffing them into a romantic subplot with a main character, they definitely did it.)
- Subverted in a recent episode, where the villain of the romantic subplot had not done it, even though he was suspected by a majority of the cast.
This is the easy way to spot the murderer in CSI. A friend of this troper pointed out that in the first 10 minutes or so there will be a completely unimportant background character, often who has one unimportant line. They add nothing to the plot, and would not be missed. Example: in one episode the owner of a diner is being questioned in her own establishment. Halfway through the chat she turned to tell the "short order chef" to get on with his work. I turned to my wife and said "It's the cook." It was.
Criminal Minds loves this trope so much they pulled it twice. In the same episode. The villain in Mayhem is actually two villains: the young teenage citizen who calls 911 to help Hotch, and the paramedic who comes to save them, violating the FBI's direct orders not to interfere. Based on one shot of the paramedic's face that was a few seconds too long, this troper's sister turned to her and said "It's the medic." It was.
Ethan Rom in Lost. In fact, Lost has a lot of these.
Frasier Crane's first appearance on Cheers (Season 3, Episode 1: "Rebound, Part 1") was as a nameless bar patron, until Diane sprung it on Sam that her shrink happened to be at the bar, observing them the whole time! Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) eventually stayed on long after Diane (Shelley Long) left the show, and eventually got his own spin-off.
In the Stargate Atlantis pilot "Rising", O'Neill's pilot (pun not intended) initially seems like a throwaway character... until he waltzes into the Antarctic outpost and it turns out that he possesses the Ancient gene, and is immediately recruited into the Atlantis Expedition. Turns out the pilot, Major Sheppard, is The Hero of the new series.
The same thing happened to some random Mook of Apophis' in the Stargate SG-1 pilot. He didn't even get any lines until he saves all of the main characters near the end. Teal'c went on to join SG-1, and become one of only two characters to remain a main character for all ten seasons.
Lampshaded in an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus where intergalactic blancmanges attempt to win Wimbledon. Two characters are introduced as "not the kind of people to be the centre of one of the most astounding incidents in the history of mankind... So let's forget about them and follow instead the destiny of this man." The couple then prove to be key to the resolution of the plot, and complain to the camera at the end of the sketch: "We tried to tell you at the beginning of the film but you just panned off us."
Subverted by the "Man in Members Only Jacket" in the last episode of The Sopranos.
- Maybe not, considering how many people think he actually shot Tony.
  - Apparently, Steve Perry only let the show use "Don't Stop Believing" if no one died so in a way, Word of God says Tony survived.
In the first episode of Firefly we see advertisements for the Blue Sun Corporation. A little bit later on, we see the characters using various products from them. It turns out that Blue Sun is one of the Big Bads that are peppered throughout the show, and their agents are a serious threat to our favorite crew.
- Blue Sun was one of the results of Executive Meddling. Fox wanted a Big Bad, Fox got a big bad. They put the Blue Sun logo on the cargo containers in the pilot post-production.
Eagle-eyed viewers of the classic Degrassi Junior High will spot numerous "extras" milling around the school that would later go on to play a major role in the series. One of whom was Spike, who wasn't even named for some time despite evolving into the crux of the drama at the end of the first season and turning into one of the franchise's longest running characters. You can see her at the school dance in the second episode as a throwaway character... making out with the guy who would later be the father of her child.
- The OC did the same thing with Taylor Townsend, who didn't become important until the third season but was clearly present in a number of earlier school scenes.
In the first half of Power Rangers Turbo, there was an episode featuring a soccer match. It unusually focused on a player named Carlos and a cheerleader named Ashley. A few episodes later, we are introduced to Cassie and T.J. who were riding a bus to Angel Grove, and later on we meet Carlos and Ashley again, and at the end of the two-parter, all four replaced the veteran rangers.
In Kamen Rider Kabuto, for a good half-dozen episodes, a "tricked-out" rider, bearing a strong resemblance to Kabuto appears and even assists in fights (by out-doing the other riders' own Clock Up). We find out a bit later that this mystery rider is, in fact, Kabuto after his Mid Season Upgrade.
In the fifth season of Angel, Wolfram and Hart's mailman is inexplicable wearing a Mexican wrestling mask at all times. A few episodes in, we learn that he was a member of a team of demon-hunting luchadores who fought an Aztec demon and a robot built by the Devil.
Very common in Monk, to the point where this troper commented on the events of the office episode "in true Monk tradition, the killer was...some random guy!" That episode had to be a particularly egregious example, considering that I don't recall the guy even talking before Monk suddenly singled him out as the killer. The baseball episode was a pretty extreme example as well, considering that the killer turned out to be someone Monk had seen appearing in an advertisement for a few seconds, not speaking, earlier in the case.
- Another episode pulled this with the "gunman" being beneficial to the heroes. Monk and the detectives are investigating a bank robbery when Randy questions a living statue who was working outside the bank. Randy then is inspired to become a living statue himself and practices the trade throughout the episode, thus implying that the statue's role in the story is over. Later, the heroes are locked in the vault by the perpetrators. They later open a box which turns out to contain the controls for the electronic message board on the front of the bank. They use it to request help. Guess who relays the message to the police.
In Space Sheriff Gavan, during one episode Gavan manages to get to the victim of the day before the monster of the week kills him and gets him to safety. He'll live, but only if he gets medical treatment at Gavan's home planet. So he's shipped off to Planet Bird and never spoken of again, until he shows up during the final battle in a Big Damn Heroes moment as Sharivan the newest Sheriff. Turns out Da Chief of the Space Sheriffs approved of his toughness and had him inducted into the Sheriff (actually it was because they found out while treating him that was really the Chosen One for a supposed lost race of people.) He would go on to be the hero in the next series Space Sheriff Sharivan.
The Observer in Fringe appears as a bald Man In Black in the background of every episode that nobody seems to notice. In Episode 4 we learn more about him, and that he's somehow connected to the odd incidents that the main characters are investigating.
The season two finale of Chuck had Chekhovs Assault Squad, which was important both for a Big Damn Heroes moment and to introduce some new villains.
"Doctor Saunders" in Dollhouse. Not only do we find out that she's a doll, but when she reappears in a recent episode ("Getting Closer") she closes the episode by shooting Bennett Halverson (Summer Glau). So she's literally a gunman.

In Role Playing Games, most RPGA tournament events followed this trope in that if someone was introduced passively, but by name, then that person would return by the end of the event either with the Super Weapon or as the Big Bad. One player was heard saying at Gen Con: "Of course I knew he was the bad guy. He was the first NPC we met who was an ass to us."
In one of this troper's Battle Tech games: so, you like the eye candy in the commander's office? She's actually your Mission Control, to mention the least spoileriffic thing.

Early on in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (the Broadway version, at least, this troper hasn't seen the original film...), Chief of Police Andre warns Lawrence, a master conman, that there is an infamous con artist even more skilled than him in town, known as the Jackal. This is promptly forgotten about for most of the show until "The Reckoning," at the climax of the story: after Ms. Colgate, Lawrence and Freddy's con target whom both men had fallen in love with, leaves the scene, having supposedly been swindled out of $50,000 by Freddy, Lawrence and Freddy find that they are the ones swindled out of $50,000, with the lone suitcase they have remaining to them merely containing Freddy's clothes and a note from Ms. Colgate that says "Goodbye, boys; it was fun! Love, The Jackal." A resounding standing ovation went throughout the theater at this revelation when this troper saw the show.
- The movie has the same plot twist, but afterwards The Jackal comes back with another mark, and quickly convinces Lawrence and Freddy to join her in conning the new mark; they respond by quickly getting into character.
  - That happens in the musical as well, in song.
- This is an arguable example; alternately, the audience and and Lawrence mistakenly assume that Freddy is the Jackal.
Rehearsal for Murder the killer is the man in the back of the auditorium. Also true in the TV movie it's based on.
Inverted in the play Rumors when the two biggest players in the show never actually appear on-stage, with one of them only showing up with one line from off-stage at the end.
In Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, the one who called the ghosts into the house and is keeping them tied there turns out to be the maid, an overeager girl who for most of the play has just been your typical simple servant played for laughs.
Played with a bit in Tom Stoppard's mystery parody The Real Inspector Hound, where both the murderer and the victim are Chekhov's Gunmen.

Perhaps the best example of this trope is played in Troika's Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines, where Jack, the first person you interact with, along with The Cab Driver responsible for getting the Main Character around Los Angeles, turn out to be responsible for everything that has happened throughout the game. The Cab Driver is even heavily implied to be Cain, the Father of all Vampires! Amusingly, if the player chooses to play as a Malkavian, this plot twist is Lampshaded during dialogue with some characters, though it is difficult to spot without having played through the game at least once.
On Breath Of Fire III, there's Peco, seemingly unimportant to the plot, with all his lines being pretty much comic relief. Then, out of nowhere, he saves your entire party from total anihillation simply because he's Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life.
Zack in Final Fantasy VII is only mentioned off-handedly by Aerith, and an old couple early in the game, but of course he holds the key to figuring out Cloud's past. He's now considered important enough to warrant starring in a short anime and his own game, he even gets a last name (Fair). Even though anyone who's played FFVII knows how it will end...
- And on the subject of Cloud's past, there's the Shinra soldier that is seen throughout Cloud's flashbacks of the Nibelheim incident. It turns out to be Cloud himself, as Zack was REALLY the one that was in SOLDIER and was Sephiroth's partner.
In Final Fantasy X a creepy and random child would appear every now and then, mainly forming in the main character Tidus' dreams. Eventually, he is revealed to be the Bahamut Fayth.
In Mega Man Battle Network 2, every so often, a gray haired kid who doesn't speak when you talk to him pops up in random places. Sure enough, he's the Big Bad.
- Same thing happens with a certain Russian scientist in Battle Network 3...
  - Also, a possible subversion... In the Mega Man Star Force anime, as the FM-ians are outside the TV station ready to gate-crash Libra's show, Hope Stelar/Akane Hoshikawa (Geo's/Subaru's mum) is seen walking nearby behind them (And with an arrow pointing her out in a style similar to how every Chekhov's Gun in Ouran High School Host Club is pointed out). Amusingly enough, she DOES end up as a contestant in Libra's show and beats Cancer at it, but she ends up losing all importance afterwards.
The first meeting with Shandra Jerro in Neverwinter Nights 2 seems to serve no purpose and feels like filler. Then her grandfather becomes important to the plot. She's held Hostage For Mc Guffin, is rescued, joins the party...
When players first meet Tabatha in Tales Of Symphonia, they are quick to write her off as a background NPC, or if they are savvy enough a failed vessel for Martel. By the end of the game she fulfils her original purpose; hosting the soul of Martel and becoming the guardian spirit of the new Tree of Mana.
- Likewise, Yuan. First appears prior to Kratos's first Face Heel Turn, repeatedly, and definitely looks important. Remarkably, he manages to pull it off again in the second game, where he looks sufficiently different enough that you can't be sure if that's really him or not when you first meet him in Asgard, very early in the game. Right near the end, it proves to be him.
- A bit of an aversion comes from the fact that many of the important characters have a theme song that plays when they show up, which kinda ruins the surprise if you figured that out early on.
In Red's Scenario in Sa Ga Frontier Dr.Klein is connected to a Terrorist Organization known as Black X mentioned early on in the story, at the very end he says that he is the one behind everything. Not the case as the Real Leader is another being completely
Valant Gramarye in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney.
- Ditto Daryan Crescend.
- Honestly, there's always at least one witness that turns out like this, if not the killer himself.
In Wild ARMs 3, you'll occasionally notice a purple-haired little girl. She might just walk by for a second as you enter a town or dungeon, or show up standing near a plot-important character as he begins conspicuously talking to himself. She is, of course, the Big Bad Manipulative Bastard.
Of course, THE example in video gaming would be the G-Man in Half Life who's seen in almost every level from the very beginning of the game in quick and silent appearances. Of course he turns out to be the most important character in the game.
Secundo, the Ambiguously Gay and Ambiguously Spanish AI from Beyond Good And Evil. He appears briefly in the first half-hour, then slinks back into the shadows, mostly just spewing pre-set lines... Of course, in the end, he's able to hack into the broadcast satellite on the moon and project the evidence of the Alpha Section's atrocities to all of Hillys.
Melchior in Chrono Trigger manages to pull it off twice. He's first introduced as a sympathetic merchant living near Medina, but turns out to be the only blacksmith capable of repairing the Masamune. Then it later turns out that he is one of the displaced gurus from 12,000 B.C.
- The game's first boss, Yakra, is a great example of this trope. Although initially introduced as just a commander in Magus' army, and killed very early on, it is actually his defeat at the hands of the heroes that causes his descendant to seek revenge on Crono, by impersonating the Chancellor of 1000 A.D. and staging a fake trial, which ultimately pushes the heroes to escape to 2300 A.D. and learn about Lavos, setting the game's story into motion. What is amazing is that it is not until very late in the game—and in an optional sidequest—that you actually learn that the reason Crono was arrested and sentenced to death upon arriving home from 600 A.D. was not because the Chancellor was overzealous about Marle's safety, but because you "just" (well, 400 years ago) defeated a seemingly unimportant monster
- Heck, Chrono Trigger requires its own folder for all of the examples of Chekhov's gunmen. There's the old man at the End of Time, who introduces the mechanics of time travel and magic to the party...and then, much later, we find out that he is Gaspar, the Zealian Guru of Time, and also creates the Chrono Trigger designed to reverse the flow of time to revive Crono after his Heroic Sacrifice.
- Magus takes this concept Up To Eleven. He gets introduced as simply being the Big Bad of the Middle Ages, but his real significance to the plot is revealed slowly over the course of the game. He is revealed to be the reason why Frog is in his amphibian form, then we first meet him trying to summon the Final Boss. And then we meet him in 12,000 B.C., in two forms at once. He is conspicuously introduced as both a bizarre prophet who is using his own knowledge of the future to manipulate the Queen of Zeal, and the young Prince Janus(who is a Chekhovs Gunman in his own right), who is later shown being blasted into the Middle Ages, after (in his adult form) both he and the player party lose a Hopeless Boss Fight against Lavos. And then again, he is later recruitable.
No One Lives Forever features a middle-age drunk civilian who appears in almost every level of the game. In the After The Credits reveal, he's shown to be the Big Bad Director of H.A.R.M., and serves as the main villain in the sequel.
In the sandbox-style open-world First Person Shooter Boiling Point: Road to Hell, a patron in the bar at the beginning of the game turns out to be The game's Big Bad. Because most of the people in the game are Signpost NPCs with identical dialogue, it's very likely you'll ignore him and miss out on talking to him entirely, and thus have no idea who the character is supposed to be when he suddenly becomes relevant to the main plot towards the end of the game.
The first few days in Persona 3 have over half the future Social Links making quick appearances.
- True, but none of those pretend to be anything other than what they are, and players who are aware of the Social Link mechanic would naturally see any character they meet as a potential link. A better example is Ikutsuki, a conspicuously inoffensive character who is introduced early on, does next to nothing of note for much of the game (he's one of the few characters who fails to exhibit any obvious signs of a Dark And Troubled Past), and surprises absolutely no one when he turns out to be The Man Behind The Man.
- In Persona 4, the gas station attendant, who is the third character you meet at the very beginning of the game in a seemingly throwaway appearance punctuated by controller vibration turns out to be the one directly responsible for everything that happens. You don't find this out unless you're on the road to the True Ending. This is also particularly well hidden because the player has been trained by this point to assume that anyone without a portrait is irrelevant to the plot — up until the reveal, the gas station attendant only has a normal, inconspicuous character model. He only gets one after The Reveal.
- In a smaller sense, Naoto Shirogane only appears as a relatively minor character just before the second dungeon, and later becomes your final party member. Then there's Taro Namatame...
- Dont forget Rise Kujikawa, who appears in a short commercial in the begining then later becomes your support charcter
- As well as Adachi, who is ultimately revealed as the murderer despite being a mere inept detective up to that point. The game's main plot practically runs off of this trope.
Captain Wesker in Resident Evil fits this quite well. He poofs off at the start of the game and then turns out to be the Big Bad of the entire series. Thank God he's not a boss fight, is all I'm saying.
- Someone hasn't played Resident Evil 5....
When you beat Garland as the first boss of Final Fantasy I, before the adventure properly begins, did you really think you'd ever see him again? And as the last boss, no less?
Subverted in Chrono Cross: the element shop keeper in Termina has virtually no plot significance, despite being one of a small handful of characters with portraits who aren't playable characters. In fact, there are plenty of characters who are more important who don't get portraits, such as the Chrono Trigger kids' time crash ghosts.
In Conkers Bad Fur Day, the three cavemen punks you see in the Rock Solid level standing next to the giant keg serve only as decoration. You later see them again when they mug you and challenge you to a hoverboard race. Ironically enough, the fourth member that you don't see in Rock Solid is the one that falls off his board and dies.
In Knights of the Old Republic, the seemingly generic Dark Jedi who Trask Ulgo sacrifices himself so you can escape from is later revealed to be Darth Bandon, Malak's apprentice. You also meet Mission, Zaalbar, Canderous, and Calo Nord in the Taris Lower City before they become important characters.
In Star Fox Adventures, The Hub has one Thorntail that doesn't speak to Fox, grumbling that he's tired. Turns out he's the fourth and final Gatekeeper.
Stage 2 of Touhou Project game Perfect Cherry Blossom features the nekomata Chen as midboss and boss. She is written off as an unhelpful nuisance, like most bosses before Stage 4. In the Extra Stage, she returns as the midboss - she's the shikigami of Ran Yakumo, the Extra Boss and herself shikigami to Phantasm Boss Yukari Yakumo.
~~Vyers~~ Mid-Boss starts out as a speedbump and doesn't get much better. Sure, he can pick up Flonne's holy pendant without getting burned, but that's probably because he's too lame to actually be evil. At the end of the game, it turns out he's the spirit of King Krichevskoy, Laharl's father, who's been working with the Seraph to test if Laharl is ready to be the Overlord.
- Earlier in the game, the castle's monster occupants show up to save your underleveled butt after it gets kicked by an Alternate Netherworld monster. Before and after that they're pretty much decorations.
- In the third game, Geoffry seems minor, but he's the Big Bad of the game.
Ryuji Yamazaki was introduced in Fatal Fury 3 as a Psycho For Hire under the Jin twins. In the later The King Of Fighters series, it was revealed that at least some of his madness is caused by his Orochi blood; he's a member of the Orochi clan central to the main plot in the King of Fighters series. Subverted somewhat in that he just doesn't care.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door played this trope pretty commonly. Of note are Flavio and General White, who both debuted at least five chapters before they were needed. Another example is Goldbob, who appeared in several chapters in different locations with his family before his major role. The game had a running gag about Mario running into several unimportant recurring characters each time he arrived in a new locale, and Goldbob blended in perfectly.
- The original did this with Parakarry.
Command and Conquer: That bald guy in the third mission intro? He's the Big Bad for the entire series.
- In Red Alert, every so often, a bald, goateed man appears and tells Stalin various things, though players don't get to hear his lines. Then the eding appears, and you realize said bald, goateed man is quite the Magnificent Bastard.
Paladins Quest has Duke, a party member who only stays with you for roughly the first five minutes of the game. He turns out to be Zaygos, who was using you to awaken the destructive creature Dal Gren.
Marx, from Kirby Super Star, is introduced at the beginning when he tells you the objective for Milky Way Wishes, wishes you luck, and you leave. You don't see him again until the very end, when he reveals that he set up the whole thing so he could rule the world.
In The Spirit Engine 2, you can see the Big Bad walking through the background in Chapter 3, if you keep your eyes open and know what to look for. Also, later on, he makes a brief stint as Mr. Exposition.
Subverted in Grandia II by Tessa, who might fool you into thinking she may be recruitable, or secretly a bad guy, but is in fact neither and dies for real within 10 minutes, despite having a VA and profile picture.
In the DS game The World Ends With You aka Its A Wonderful World, a slightly different sprite can be seem in a crowded scene at the beggining of the game, chillin' and not even having a line. Or moving. Or doing anything, for the matter. He's in fact the fourth main character, and the one who set up everything in the game to happen.
Mother 3 gives us Leder, the incredibly tall, silent guy standing by the bell at the start of the game who you probably ignored. Turns out that he was entrusted to be the only one to retain any memory of the events that lead up to the settlement of civilisation on the Nowhere Islands. Who knew?
The grave digger in God of War. When you first meet him he's just some weird guy digging an arbitrary hole. Several days later you're fighting your way through the Underworld when he pulls you out of the hole, right outside where you need to be (which would've taken a hell of a lot longer to get to if Ares hadn't whipped a piller into your chest from several miles away). He's also Zeus.
The Kid in Jak II isn't just the lost heir, he's Jak's younger self. Also, Veger may have kicked Jak out of Haven, but it wasn't personal... except he knew that Jak was the little kid, he knew who Jak's father was, and he was responsible for separating the two of them in the first place.
In Bio Shock, you get an audio-diary in Doctor Suchong's appartment, of his final moments. He is having trouble getting the Big Daddies to Imprint on the Little Sisters. He smacks a little sister when she won't leave him alone, and her Big Daddy goes apeshit. Turns out, that Big Daddy's the protagonist for the second game.
Amy of the Soul Series first appeared in a minor role in the Atract Mode of Soul Calibur 2 hideing Raphel from Guards. She returns as a playable bonus charcter and Raphel's main motivation in the next game, revamped for the acarde version into a full charcter and then revamped again for Soul Calibur IV as a full charcter.

The very first strip of Ozy and Millie features background characters who would become important later.
Jones from Gunnerkrigg Court. Her first mention in the comic was so subtle that no one noticed it at the time. Then she was introduced standing next to the Headmaster at the parlay, watching the proceedings silently. As it turns out, she's responsible for training the future Medium, and she's a valuable source of information.
In Tales of the Questor, there is a small story where Linneaus, a Raccoonan pastor learns that the Alligator people in the swamp were looking for information about God and he volunteers to go to them as a missionary. While that story seems like a postscript story to the strip's first major continuity, there is a later story where a wizard tells of a boy with a powerful talent for magic who goes half-crazed in horror of his power and the people who tried to exploit him and he was last seen running into the swamp, never to be seen again. These stories may be unrelated, but given the religious allegory nature of the strip, it would seem that the boy is inadvertantly heading for the one Raccoonan who can help him.
Krosp the emperor of all cats is in the last panel of This page among Dr.Demitri's teddybears.
- Moloch von zinzer at first appears to be just a throw away enemy. in just a few short pages, he comes back to play a larger role. The clank in the time window doesn't actually come into being until years (our time and comic time) later. Von Zinzer's true importance is hinted at when Dupree gives her phenomenon report to Klaus.
- Merlot is of minor importance, when we first meet him, and then one last time years later.
- the Geisters... they first appear in the above mentioned phenomenon report from Dupree.
During the Sister arc of El Goonish Shive, Tedd and Elliot found the diary of the wizard who created the diamond that had "created" Ellen. Guess who the antagonist of the current arc is.
In an early Order Of The Stick strip, Sabine mentions that she is a servant of "the archfiends" sent to aid (and get sex from) Nale. Later on, we see a brief flashback of her in the Lower Planes, where she recieves orders from three rather ominous looking cloaked figures. These three figures have recently been introduced as characters in their own right, the Inter-Fiend Cooperation Commission, and look to be shaping up as very important villains...

Two of them in Broken Saints. The first is the hobo Raimi meets near the alleyway, who seems to be nothing but another one of his hallucinations. The second is the suppposedly dead Lear Dunham, one of the co-founders of BIOCOM. In the end, they turn out to be the same person. The freakin Big Bad.
Many, many people in Whateley Universe works. Given that the stories center around the 600 or so students at the Whateley Academy and their connections (plus the fact that the number of novels, novel chapters, short stories, novelettes, and vignettes now numbers over a hundred) it is sort of inevitable that characters seen in passing can become major players in later stories. Examples: Beltane (Kendall Forbes) gives the protagonists the campus tour on day one... and much later gets her own leading role in "For Whom the Belle Tolls", as well as other appearances. The Headmistress gives a speech on the first day of classes... and then turns out to also be the greatest superheroine around (in her spare time).
- One of the hot blondes that Phase sees in the cafeteria on her first day at Whateley Academy - the one who really stares angrily at her - turns out to be an old enemy. Who then in later stories turns out to be the blackmailer. And then in a later story actually gets people to try to kill Team Kimba. And then in a later story takes over the Alpha clique and runs the student body, so she can really go after the heroes.
- At first, Cavalier and Skybolt only get mentioned to show how dangerous The Don really is, and why The Don runs the campus. They're central to the Fey and Generator story "Christmas Elves". And then what they do next drives a lot of the plots for Winter Term.
This five minute skit uses it twice! (Pay attention to the chaos that effects 2 characters...)
Happens multiple times in Dre — oh, you're probably tired of listening to me go on about that story, anyway. The first one is Souya (introduced Chapter 6, becomes really important around Chapter 42 or so.) The second is "Big D", although his introduction-to-importance time is relatively low. The third, as highlighting about half of the spoilers on the page I made for it will reveal, is Aurrorra, who started out as a minor character and became the author's favorite character, hence a necessary ascension. First appears in Chapter 199, reappears and sticks around for good at Chapter 230. And the fourth...well, any trope whose reasons for being included on the page are left out, and it's not something really general (or is too obvious, or has too many examples to list), or better yet, the description given is so vague as to leave even more questions (such as the description given for Fun With Acronyms), that trope probably applies to the fourth one. Eagle-eyed readers might have already picked up on the upcoming importance... I really wish this thing had more fans, because there are a few Epileptic Trees to be planted here.
During The Irate Gamer's review of Super Mario Bros 2, he makes a joke about the game only having one player by having another Irate Gamer briefly appear, asking if he could play. Towards the end of his review, he comes back, revealing that he's an Evil Twin.
Two in There Will Be Brawl. Game and Watch had been seen around the city doing various tasks. He actually is an Eldritch Abomination, and is the "End of Days" meant to bring about the end of the world.
- Ness and Lucas were seen playing in an alley, and served to remind Luigi of his motivation for fighting. Then it gets turned on his head when he discovers they are the murderers.

It's pretty much standard that at least one character questioned for five seconds in an episode of Scooby Doo will invariably turn out to be the one perpetrating the Ghost Hoax of the Week. (And if two characters are questioned, always pick the one that's more helpful.)
- Lampshaded in a Foxtrot strip, when Jason and Marcus are trying to clear their names as suspects in the abduction of Eileen Jacobsen's diary. Early in the arc, Eileen's friend (re)introduces her brother. At the end, he predictably turns out to be the culprit, prompting Jason and Marcus to cry:
  Jason: Of course! The innocuous secondary character!
  Marcus: Introduced, and then forgotten!
  Phoebe: Scooby snacks are on me.
- It always seems to be the very first person whose full name is given, especially if it seems irrelevant at the time.
- Lampshaded to Hell and back in an episode in a relatively new series, where Velma pins it on the myth-obsessed old tour guide for precisely this reason... and then it turns out to be someone they hadn't met at all. She then complains about the unfairness of this.
Mildly subverted in Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law, with Bill Ken Sebben, Phil's twin brother. His introduction is so brief that it is even accompained by the voice-over, "... and his twin brother Bill, who was not worth mentioning up until this point." However, many episodes later he is mistaken for Phil, who died in the previous episode.
- no he didn't, everyone just thinks he did.
Avatar the Last Airbender: In the episode "The Storm", you see a younger girl standing close to Iroh and smiling as Zuko gets scarred in the Agni Kai. This lets you know two things: one, she's family, and two, she's gonna be trouble when she finally shows up. Ladies and gentlemen, you just met Azula.
- Even before that, she was the firebender in the opening.
- Azula is just one of many examples; the show loves this trope. The Giant Lion-Turtle who finally unlocks the Eleventh Hour Superpower for Aang was mentioned as early as the pilot, appeared several times as a statue, and showed up on a suspiciously conspicuous scroll in the ancient library.
In WITCH, Elyon, who would eventually become the focus of a major part of the series is first introduced as a classmate of the main group, and is even introduces herself with another character that would remain a background character.
- During the second season finale we're introduced to a man that is a major part of the next story in the comics, but as the series didn't get another season, it's technically a Continuity Cameo.
In Disney's Gargoyles, a lot of characters would be introduced like this. For example, Elisa Maza appears for a few seconds in the first two episodes before being formally introduced in the third. Matt Bluestone can be seen driving the police chief Maria Chavez around, one episode before we're a actually told who he is. The Archmage at first seems like a one-time villain to use in a flashback, until he returns with a vengeance. The uber example of this, however, has to be Vinnie, who is occasionally seen in the background having bad things happen to him thanks to the gargoyles, until he is focused on in an episode where decides to get revenge by shoving a pie into Goliath's face.
- Titania was first introduced as Fox's Mother several episodes before she appeared on screen, where she comments that Goliath earned her favor due to previous services rendered. Similarly, in his debue episode, Puck mentions that he works for humans, one in particular ("the human" in Demona's words), because they are fun. Nearly 40 episodes later he is revealed to be Owen Burnett, who had been a minor character since episode two. Word Of God insists that many of these developed around mid-season 2, mostly after the writing staff realized how much stuff said off hand came together with the newer stories.
Kim Possible has a few of these. When Ron Stoppable had a speech Dr. Vivian Porter was briefly seen in the audience, in the next episode she got a main supporting role. Also in that episode Justine Flanner was scene in another set of an audience, and she got a main supporting role several episodes later.
In Code Lyoko, William was introduced as the token "bad boy", played to be a romantic rival for Ulrich and not much else. However, in the third season finale, he's inducted into the Lyoko Warriors, gets possessed by XANA, and ends up being the enemy for the next season.
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm has a mobster that appears in the back of an old photo and is seen when Andrea and Bruce are about to talk to Andrea's father about the engagement. Turns out that's the man that would later become the Joker.
Porter C. Powell in Transformers Animated is an accidental example. He was twice in the first season: the first is as one of Prometheus Black's financiers letting him know that his funding is being cut and he's not getting anymore test subjects, the second is as a random bystander when Professor Sumdac unveiled the improved Dinobots. In the first episode of season two we find out that he's Chairman of the Board of Sumdac Systems and proceeds to take over the company in Sumdac's absence and kick Sari out of her home for using money to try and find her dad, solidifying his role as both a Corrupt Corporate Executive and the most important human villain. However, his role and his position on the board only came into being when the show's staff members took a liking to his character design and bugged the head story editor into featuring him in a larger role.
A similar accidental example, though not in the same series, can be found in The Ren and Stimpy Show, which had a character named George Liquor, who had a starring role in the episodes "Man's Best Friend" (kept off of Nickelodeon) and "Dog Show", as well as some cameo appearances here and there. Nickelodeon didn't like the character, and gave the rights to him to John Kricfalusi once he is fired from the series's production. George Liquor has starred in his own webseries since then, which is currently getting a revival.
In Danny Phantom, a girl named Valerie appears a couple of times. She gets maybe four lines of dialogue at max and seems to be nothing more then a standard Rich Bitch who wouldn't give the main character any time of day. THEN her "debut" episode came. From that point on, she becomes the series' Anti Hero.
Futurama: I'll bet you thought Nibbler was just some stupid little pet that Leela saved from that collapsing planet. Well he's not. Interestingly, we're led to believe his eventual significance is to make fuel for the ship, as his bodily waste comes out as dark matter. But that's still not it. Not even close.
- About two minutes into the second season premiere, a random crowd shot includes an old bald guy in a white shirt with a 9 on it. Eight years later, that person plays a vital part in the fourth movie.
  - He was actually planned to be important in a canned storyline.
- Also, Zoidberg, Hermes, Kif, and Zap Brannigan all flash past during the opening credits of the first episode. Zoidberg and Hermes don't show up until the second episode, and the other two don't show up until the fourth.
- A DVD Commentary points out a couple of sewer mutants seen in the occasional crowd scene underground during the first couple of seasons. Leela's parents are among them.
On several old Looney Tunes and Tex Avery shorts, a silly little character who keeps walking by on every other scene is revealed at the end to be the hero.
The Venture Brothers practically runs on this trope. At the end of season one, The Monarch's cocoon base is destroyed. It is rebuilt surprisingly quickly at the start of season two, and this is handwaved by having Monarch say he used parts he stole from an unknown character named Sargent Hatred. At the end of the season, Hatred makes an appearance at The Monarch's wedding, but it's essentially a one-off gag. Then in season three, Hatred becomes Dr. Venture's new arch-enemy, and it turns out his entire motivation for doing this is to get back at the Monarch for stealing from him (by stealing Monarch's nemesis.) This leads directly to Hatred becoming the new Venture bodyguard and a main character in season four.
- Then there's Captain Sunshine, who is given a passing mention in season one (Monarch tells his mooks to "send the charred remains of Wonder Boy to his beloved Captain Sunshine.") More than two seasons later, that line of dialog spawns an entire episode, in which we meet Captain Sunshine, and see that the loss of Wonder Boy has caused him all sorts of mental problems.
- Phantom Limb started off as a throwaway character attending the Venture yard sale, but he ended up coming back and becoming season two's big bad.
The frequent Early Bird Cameos in The Spectacular Spider-Man function this way for a viewer unfamiliar with the Spider-Man mythos, as ostensibly tertiary characters are developed into supporting cast and antagonists.
- Done to great effect in Spider-Man the Animated Series in the early 90's. Nearly ever character who later becomes important as a villain or another hero appears first as an acquaintance of Parker. Eddie Brock in particular appears often in the first few episodes, and becomes Venom later in the season.

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