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alt title(s): Mr Exposition; Mister Exposition 
Mr. Exposition takes pride in his job.
"Thank you, Mr. Exposition." — Slappy Squirrel, Animaniacs
"I know! That's what I told 'em, but no! All the cruddy exposition goes to me! I've got to talk and talk and fiddle with the computer and talk some more and fiddle and talk! I feel like Obi-Wan cruddy Kenobi!" — Roddie MacStew, Freakazoid
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 provide Exposition to the audience, sometimes to the point of an Infodump. This is why they spend so much time explaining things the protagonists already know. 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.
In spite of the name, this is an equal-opportunity position, as the many female examples below demonstrate.
The Watson — especially if the Elephants Child — may force Mr. Exposition into this role.
See also Captain Obvious.
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Examples
Anime & Manga
Comics
- 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.
- 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.
- The Inhumans in Marvel Comics (at least in their early appearances) are an entire race of Mr. Expositions. They also do recaps. A lot.
- The Key, from DC Comics. Lampshaded and subverted in that opening up your entire mind to the universe (A God Am I) has the side effect of causing a lot of monologuing.
- Batman plays this role in a lot of JLA stories.
- All the issues of Cable Deadpool after #13 feature Deadpool doing a 4th wall breaking recap page in the beginning of the comic. His "Little Yellow Boxes" are also filled with expository dialogue, among other musings.
Films
- 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.
- Ric Olié in The Phantom Menace has dialogue that consists entirely of exposition such as "That little droid did it, he bypassed the main power drive!" Same thing with Admiral Ackbar in ROTJ ("It's a trap!")
- 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.
- Mr. Gibbs in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy seems to exist primarily to tell Will about Jack's backstory or Pirate lore.
- And he takes it very personally when Those Two Guys, Pintel and Ragetti, try to do his job for him.
- James Bond's "M".
- In Casino Royale, Mathis plays the role during the poker scenes, explaining what is going on to Vesper. Later, Felix Leiter briefly plays the role by offering to "stake" Bond and then promptly explaining what "stake" means when he looks confused.
- The nameless voice (presumably the Secretary) who provided the tape-recorded briefings on Mission Impossible.
- 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."
- In fact, he refers to the character by name as Mr. Exposition.
- Grave-Robber from Repo! The Genetic Opera. His 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.
- And before that, there's 'Genetic Repo Man' and '21st Century Cure,' both of which go over the basics of the world they live in, explaining the role of Repo Men and some facts about the circumstances that led to the Repo Men coming into existence.
- The Princess Irulan
 manages to pull this off seriously in Dune.
- Mr. Universe in Serenity, to the point where Joss Whedon refers to him as The King of Exposition in the DVD commentary.
- Lindsay Brigman in The Abyss does a slightly Lampshaded version of this in the early descent scene, as she explains the (plot critical) perils of prolonged deep water diving to a SEAL team that is thoroughly familiar with them.
- They end up finishing most of her sentences for her.
- Margo Litzenberger, the reporter in Big Trouble in Little China temporarily embodies this trope at one point:
Margo: You mean the Lo Pan that's chairman of the National Orient Bank and owns the Wing Kong Trading Company, but who's so reclusive that no one has laid eyes on him in years?
Jack Burton: Who the hell are you, anyway?
- In Fatal Instinct, secretary Laura Lincolnberry explains the situation in great detail to her boss Ned Ravine.
- In addition to providing keys when needed, the Keymaker in The Matrix Reloaded provides a great deal of information to Our Heroes about the bomb-trapped office building with many doors (and how to break into it).
Gamebooks
- 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.
Literature
- In CJ Cherryh's Cyteen and Regenesis, the first Ariane Emory acts as Ms. Exposition for the second, via pre-prepared programs on Base One left for her successor. In Regenesis, the second Ariane Emory begins leaving records for her successor in a similar manner.
- In Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence, this role usually falls to Merriman Lyon: he explains their quests to the Drews in Over Sea, Under Stone and Greenwitch, and acts as Will's Mentor in the titular book. (In The Grey King, however, the job mostly falls to Will.)
- In Simon Hawke's Time Wars books, this role normally falls to Moses Forrester in his initial mission briefings to the Time Commandos.
- 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.
- Mike Hanlon in Stephen King's IT. Being the only member of the Lucky Seven who stayed in Derry, and therefore the only one who remembers anything at all about what happened when they were kids, Mike is something of an exposition god in the book. Not only does he provide exposition to his friends little by little, his journal entries provide exposition as to the history of It, and whenever another character gets to do some expositioning they generally turn to Mike and ask if whatever they just stated is correct. Interestingly enough, it works. Contageous amnesia can apparently be a wonderful exposition tool so long as someone is immune.
- In CS Lewis' Narnia books:
- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: Mr. Tumnus, and later the Beavers, play this role for the Pevensies.
- The Magician's Nephew: Uncle Andrew plays this role initially, until Jadis enters the story and assumes the role.
- Prince Caspian: Cornelius, Caspian's tutor outlines how Narnia changed from the situation in the previous book to the current book, and the true nature of Caspian's uncle Miraz.
- In the Harry Potter books, Dumbledore fills this role quite a bit. From beyond the grave, at one point! Hermione also fills this role on occasion.
- Winter Celchu, Leia's aide in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, tends to fulfill this when she has more than one line of dialogue at a time. Why? Holographic memory.
- In JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf takes on this role in The Fellowship of the Ring, particularly in "Shadow of the Past" and "The Council of Elrond". (In the latter chapter, however, the role alternates between the various attendees.)
- Snow Crash: The Librarian is an expensive computer program owned by the protagonist that is literally an anthropomorphization of all the world's collected information and knowledge, sort of like a talking 200x-size Wikipedia. Its sole purpose is basically to tell the protagonist the complicated plot. There are chapters nearly entirely filled with nothing but the Librarian expositioning.
Live Action TV
Theater
- Parodied in The Real Inspector Hound by the play-within-a-play's Mrs. Drudge, who answers the phone, "Hello, the drawing-room of Lady Muldoon's countrry residence one morning in early spring?" and "I'm afraid there is no one of that name here, this all very mysterious and I'm sure it's leading up to something, I hope nothing is amiss for we, that is Lady Muldoon and her houseguests, are here cut off from the world, including Magnus, the wheel-chair-ridden half-brother of the ladyship's husband Lord Albert Muldoon who ten tears ago went for a walk on the cliff and was never seen again." And then there's the treacherous fog.
- The musical Urinetown, which parodies almost anything that moves, has Officer Lockstock, the narrator, reference this trope on several occasions.
Video Games
- Since he's been in similar situations before, Leon S. Kennedy takes this role the Capcom's (mercifully Alice-free) CG film Resident Evil: Degeneration. That said, he still gets to kick more ass than every other character combined.
- Pretty much any supporting character in the Metal Gear Solid series. Particularly Col. Campbell and Dr. Naomi in the first Metal Gear Solid (the latter whom goes into in-depth detail explaining the backstories of every boss in the game), Rosemary and Pliskin in Sons of Liberty, and Drebin in Guns of the Patriots to name a few.
- The Colonel, Otacon, and Mei Ling all serve this role in Snake's codec conversations in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, explaining information on Nintendo characters that Snake doesn't know about.
- 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...
- Even better than that, while Travis does display open contempt for the Smiths at points, he shows it by being the most honest and trustworthy character in the game. When he says he'll talk "straight up," he's usually getting ready to tell you something you'd really rather not know.
- At least he's more trustworthy than Iwazaru. And less annoying than Kess, who tells you how to defeat the next boss.
- 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?
- Somewhat justified in both cases. Tidus is the game's Watson, and Lulu knows a lot about the world, having gone on two (failed) pilgrimages before accompanying Yuna, and Auron is actually the only character (maybe, aside from Seymour) that actually has any clue what's really going on.
- Namine gets this role in Kingdom Hearts II, explaining to Roxas (and the players who haven't played Chain of Memories) just what the heck is going on in the Prologue.
- Once Roxas is out of the picture, Master Yen Sid from Fantasia serves this role to Sora.
- In the final chapter of Mother 3, it's revealed this was the entire reason Leder did not have his old memories erased, in case anything corrupts their lives again. His monologue is so big, a stinkbug helpfully memorizes most of what he's revealed if you happen to forget.
- Morris O'Dell from Splinter Cell gives exposition in cutscenes at the beginning of missions. Justified, as he is a news anchor.
- Pick any character with a speaking role in Mass Effect. ANY. CHARACTER.
- Professor Frankly is the Mr Exposition of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and Merlon fills this role in Super Paper Mario. The first game of the series, having a simpler plot, seemingly doesn't need one.
- In the field, Goombario and Goombella have actual powers related to exposition, able to tell you about your surroundings, people and enemies.
- Guy from Tales of the Abyss is often forced into this role by Jade. So much that it was a Running Gag.
- The Ace Attorney series has the various assistants that go around to assist or comment on the action, and to give general plot recaps at the beginning of each chapter. Most often, it has been Maya Fey.
- Upon joining the party, Naoto Shirogane in Persona 4 serves this role primarily.
- Knights of the Old Republic: Trask, Carth, Bastila, the Jedi, Atris, Atton, Kreia, HK-47, T3-M4, the player character, that guy you run into on Nar Shaddaa...
- Kreia gets points for being the main provider of exposition and a Consummate Liar at its worst. The second game in general tended to give the role to people you should never, ever trust.
- Deckard Cain in the Diablo games, the only character besides Diablo himself who will appear in all three. His role is always the same: talk in a monotone voice about the backstory nobody's interested in.
Web Comics
- The bard Elan in the webcomic The Order of the Stick even has a spell called "Summon Plot Exposition" which creates dramatic illusionary pictures that accompany Elan's voice-overs.
- He also cries when someone else pulls off a good plot recap.
- Redcloak often fills this role on the villain's side, with the help of a series of short-lived, lower-ranking hobgoblin clerics.
- Mr. Verres from El Goonish Shive, who recently exclaimed "I am an endless barrel of exposition!"
- As the creator explains, Mr. Verres, Grace and Tedd are the main barrels, but since Tedd and Grace learned most of their information from Mr. Verres, he's directly responsible for most of the expositions in the strip. Also, there are Exposition Fairies, but not in the usual sense.
- Parodied with Dr. Viennason in Sluggy Freelance. His DVD series "A Visual Guide to Timeless Space" gives pretty much all the exposition during the "Oceans Unmoving" arc... and he does it so poorly most characters consider it a form of torture.
- Red Mage usually does this in 8-Bit Theater, although Thief took the role when the Light Warriors were in Elfland.
- Rainer from MSFHigh is this, combined with being a Handsome Lech. He's getting more and more lampshade hanging.
Web Original
- Captain Exposition from Protectors of the Plot Continuum has been known to appear and deliver some information on an Agent's past when said Agent is in a Heroic BSOD because of the bad Fan Fic. The information pertains in some way to why the Agent is in a Heroic BSOD.
- Impro Fanfiction's Do-Gooders's Sailor Exposition is a parody of this; she defeats monsters by talking to them.
- Any of the time travelers from TRU-Life Adventures.
- In the Whateley Universe, a lot of the teams at Whateley Academy seem to have them. Ferret of the Good Ol' Boyz, Stopwatch of the Masterminds, Foxfire of the Whitman Literary Girls (well, it's not really a superhero team).
- Agent Washington from Red vs. Blue: Reconstruction dispenses all sorts of information about Project Freelancer and the AIs it uses. According to the DVD commentary, Church served in this role for plot recaps in the original series.
- Gubaru from the web fiction serial Dimension Heroes, while serving a purpose as mentor and part-protector of the multiverse, serves the majority of the series as an exposition machine.
- In KateModern, Sophie's main purpose is to compile recap episodes and discuss plot events with the viewers.
- Broken Saints has Raimi Matthews, who also functions as Non Action Guy, Deadpan Snarker, Sad Clown, and The Smart Guy. A man of many hats indeed.
- Played with in zOMG!; the expositional character who mysteriously disappears at the beginning is actually one of the Big Bad's evil henchpeople...and reappears near the end of the game to provide more exposition.
Western Animation
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