Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Walking Spoiler / Live-Action TV

Go To

The twists behind these Live-Action TV characters are guaranteed to come up in discussion.

  • 24:
    • Nina Meyers and President Charles Logan, after they were revealed to be Evil All Along.
    • Recurring antagonist Cheng Zhi, due to him always appearing late in a season, including sequel mini-series 24: Live Another Day.
  • At the beginning of Alias, Sydney's mother Laura is presumed dead. She appears in the second season as a main cast member, which in and of itself spoils that she's alive, but she's also credited as "Irina Derevko", which kind of takes some of the drama out of Syd wondering whether or not her father was actually a former Russian spy in the first season. He wasn't, but take a wild guess who was...
  • American Horror Story: Asylum: The revelation that the infamous serial killer Bloody Face is the apparently upstanding psychiatrist Dr. Thredson meant that every trope applying to the character is spoiler-tagged.
  • Angel:
    • Illyria. Just a picture of how she appears in the series immediately spoils the fact that Fred dies. The best you can do is hope that people won't recognise that it's Amy Acker underneath all that make-up, but covering up the name of the actress portraying Illyria does tend to set off alarm bells.
    • Connor, whose very existence spoils the fact that: a) Angel has a biological son; and b) Said son is given a Plot-Relevant Age-Up via a Year Inside, Hour Outside situation. Even if you spoiler-tag the fact that he's Angel's son, you'd have to also tag his name in order to hide what happens to that adorable baby mid-way through Season 3.
  • Arrow
    • Malcom Merlyn, AKA The Well Dressed Man, AKA the Dark Archer. We already knew he was the leader of the show's Nebulous Evil Organisation, but what we didn't know until the Mid-Season Twist was that he's Tommy's father, and he — not Tommy — is the adaptation of the comic villain Merlyn the Archer.
    • Slade Wilson, who in the Arrow continuity does not take up the mantle of the villain Deathstroke until another Mid-Season Twist reveals his survival and Face–Heel Turn. Simply knowing that he exists radically rewrites everything you think you knew or had figured out about Deathstroke and Ollie's time on the island.
    • Season 5 has Adrian Chase, Star City's district attorney, who later turns out to be Prometheus, the Big Bad of the season, and the illegitimate son of a Corrupt Corporate Executive that Oliver killed all the way back in Season 1. His goal is to break Oliver and show him that he poisons everyone he comes in contact with.
  • Babylon 5 had the great Minbari hero Valen, who is really the supposed-to-be-dead Jeffrey Sinclair in disguise.
    • Also, in Shadow Dancing, the appearance of Anna Sheridan was hidden as much as SAG rules allowed - placing at the end of cast list, and without mentioning character's surname.
  • Every single Cylon on Battlestar Galactica (2003) with the possible exception of Number Six, since she's the only one who (arguably) isn't introduced to the audience as a "human".
  • Todd from Breaking Bad initially appears to be an extremely nice and eager guy, even if he is a criminal. His shocking and casual execution of a young boy at the end of a robbery tears that entire image to shreds and was also the final catalyst in the dissolution of Walter and Jesse's relationship.
  • The Blacklist: The main character, who can't be referred to by his proper name without spoiling the end of Season 5.
  • The Boys (2019): Victoria Neuman, real name Nadia Edgar, is the Supe killing Vought's enemies and the adoptive daughter of Stan Edgar after accidentally killing her parents.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
    • Ben from season 5 is the physical vessel of the season's Big Bad. No one in-universe knows this because there's a magic spell on him that makes any human forget.
    • Also from season 5, Dawn. You can't even mention her last name without spoiling, since the fact that Buffy suddenly has a sister is a massive spoiler, as is the fact that she's a magical key.
    • Spike's eventual Heel–Face Turn makes him very hard to discuss without spoilers.
  • Chouseishin Series:
  • Chuck season 4 Big Bad Volkoff turned into this when we found out he used to be Hartley Winterbottom, before an Intersect prototype made him Brainwashed and Crazy.
  • Cobra Kai: John Kreese's return at the end of season one is shocking, since every other character believed he was dead.
  • Dead of Summer: Amy, after spending most of the show apparently being The Cutie and a Final Girl in the making, is revealed to be the Big Bad in the penultimate episode.
  • Defiance:
    • Irzu, an Irathian god that manifests itself within Irisa. It turns out to be the ARK brain of the Kizinti having implanted itself within Irisa and is out to terraform the earth and start anew.
    • There's also Pilar McCawley, Rafe's wife and the mother of their children, who appears near the end of Season 2. She turns out to be a bit Axe-Crazy and an Evil Matriarch who decides to kidnap Christie and Alak at the end of the season.
    • A character who's such a spoiler that they're tagged as a "Spoiler Character" is Indogene Kenya, who is thought to be Kenya Rosewater Back from the Dead, but turns out to be an Indogene clone that Niles Pottinger had made in an attempt to make Amanda his.
  • Degrassi: The Next Generation:
    • Cam. His character lasted less than a season before committing suicide, and his entire arc was about building up his depression and anxiety until his death.
    • Jimmy. It's really hard to talk about his character without mentioning that he is paralyzed from being shot in season 4.
  • Doctor Who:
    • If you have just started watching a particular Doctor's tenure, a mere glance at the DVD box art will make it abundantly clear when the Doctor is going to "die" and be replaced. Seeing a new actor on the next season's cover is a death sentence. Indeed, the very fact that the Doctor is going to be replaced was quite a twist back in the day.
      • The same also applies to the tenures of companions.
    • The Daleks and the Master were initially this for the new series, as it had established that the Doctor was the only survivor of both Daleks and Time Lords after the Time War. That was quickly abandoned for the Daleks though, and the Master's resurrections (plural) eventually slipped into Late-Arrival Spoiler/It Was His Sled territory.
    • River Song. This even applies in the series — thanks to time travel shenanigans, her timeline runs in roughly the opposite direction to the Doctor's, so her "earlier" is his (and the viewers') "later". Her catchphrase literally is "Spoilers!"
    • Clara Oswald showing up in Series 7 three months before she was scheduled to, dying, appearing again, dying again, and appearing for a third time is how she's introduced. Explaining all that is a spoiler for the entire series. How she and the Doctor are parted for good in Series 9 covers even more spoilers.
    • John Hurt's character in "The Name of the Doctor".
    • The appearance of the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) in "The Day of the Doctor" renders utterly moot the major plot point of the next episode, "The Time of the Doctor" since his very existence means there's no validity to the Eleventh Doctor's concern that he's the last incarnation. In between "The Day of the Doctor" and "The Time of the Doctor", it was impossible to talk about him without revealing his Early-Bird Cameo. This overlaps with Foregone Conclusion and Like You Would Really Do It, since Capaldi was cast as the Doctor and announced several weeks before "The Day of the Doctor" aired.
      • And about 5 minutes after Capaldi's entrance, Tom Baker appears as the Curator, who some people believe to be another future incarnation of the Doctor, therefore implying the Doctor will revert back to earlier incarnations at some point (for nostalgia's sake) though albeit after the show's stories are finished if that ever happens. Even if Eleven was unaware of Twelve's involvement, he couldn't ignore the Curator if this is true.
    • Missy from Series 8 and 9, who is revealed in the two-part finale of Series 8 to be a female incarnation of the Master — "Missy" is short for "the Mistress".
    • Ashildr, Maisie Williams' guest character in Series 9, initially was promoted as a one-off for the two-parter "The Girl Who Died"/"The Woman Who Lived", but the ending of the latter sets up her prominent role in the three-part Season Finale.
    • For Series 10, it's the return of John Simm's incarnation of the Master. He turns up unexpectedly in the Season Finale — or it would have been unexpected if it wasn't for the BBC's publicity department, whose hands were forced by the Sun tabloid.
    • Sacha Dhawan's character in "Spyfall" is dramatically revealed as The Master in the two-parter's midpoint cliffhanger, making it impossible to discuss him without revealing this, especially as his character is introduced as an apparent ally of the Doctor.
    • "Fugitive of the Judoon": Not only is Ruth Clayton the fugitive, her true identity is a spoiler of such gargantuan proportions that it shall not be listed here. It's a revelation that is quite literally canon-shaking.
  • Edith's illegitimate daughter Marigold in Downton Abbey.
  • Elementary: For season one, Irene Adler. Irene's still alive, Moriarty exists, and they're the same person. Referring to Moriarty as 'she' (or indeed a non-gender-specific pronoun) is also a spoiler, of course.
  • The Flash (2014)
    • It has multiple characters in its second season whose very existences spoil the reveal that the singularity created portals to Earth-2, the biggest of which being Jay Garrick and Earth-2's Harrison Wells. Even before the end of Season 1, it became increasingly hard to talk about Dr. Wells without major spoilers, and nigh impossible to refer to his alter-ego, the Reverse Flash. (And that's not even mentioning the existence of the original Harrison Wells, whom Eobard Thawne killed and replaced.) Basically, trying to talk about any character on this show played by Tom Cavanagh is like navigating a huge minefield made of spoilers.
    • Season 3 gives us Savitar, the Big Bad of Season 3, said to be the first speedster and The Man Behind the Man to Dr. Alchemy. Towards the end of the season, he's revealed to be a future version of Barry Allen himself who's out to ensure his existence by killing Iris West, driving Barry to despair.
  • Fringe has 3 of these in the Amber Universe/S4 character sheet: the return of David Robert Jones, alternate-Nina Sharp and the reappearance of a now Omnicidal Maniac William Bell.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • Iwan Rheon was told to say nothing about his character in the third season, who is merely called "Boy" in the script, and he was the only new actor playing a big part that was not part of the promotional material before the season began. Everything about the character's identity, allegiance and aims were meant to be a mystery and the clues given by the show are intentionally contradictory. Of course, this being the case is a spoiler already because it means that viewers can't take as true any personality he goes by until then. Those who have read the source material know who he is, but the character's introduction was massively changed and his true identity is only revealed on screen in the season 3 finale: Ramsay Bolton.
    • In season 4, the Night's King made his appearance. Though HBO would try to Retcon his existence on their site, referring to him as "another White Walker".
    • Benjen Stark in season 6, as it is a spoiler that he returns.
    • Lyanna Stark's Death by Origin Story, which actually involves her Death by Childbirth to Jon and asking her brother Ned to take care of him.
    • Brienne didn't kill the Hound, and he returns in Season 6.
  • The Good Place:
    • Michael is characterized throughout Season 1 as an endearing, good-natured and somewhat clueless father figure to the residents of the titular Mundane Afterlife. The season finale reveals that he's been Evil All Along and is an agent of the "Bad Place" tasked with torturing the show's core cast, and Season 2 deals with his real (sadistic and manipulative) self experiencing a gradual Heel–Face Turn.
    • A few episodes into Season 1, "Jianyu", a mute Buddhist monk, reveals to Eleanor that he is really Jason, a DJ from Florida who was also sent to the Good Place by mistake.
  • Gotham: Jeremiah Valeska, Jerome's heretofore unseen twin brother. Turns out he, not Jerome, is The Joker.
  • Grey's Anatomy: Lexie Grey. Her name by itself spoils the fact that she's related to Meredith Grey, who has no family left. Lexie doesn't appear until season 4 when it's revealed she's Meredith's unknown sister.
  • How I Met Your Mother: The Mother herself. The premise of the series hinges around the story of how Ted met her, taking YEARS to built up the story in order to lead to the Meet Cute. The character was finally cast and shown in the eighth season finale, "Something New," which only has her boarding a train to go to the same wedding as everyone else. This tells the viewer that she will play a part in the next season but not actually meet Ted until the Grand Finale. As it turns out she's the catalyst for Barney and Robin's wedding, as a Flashback reveals that Barney met her coincidentally during the previous season.
  • Interview with the Vampire (2022): In Season 1, it's difficult to talk about Rashid without revealing his true identity: the vampire Armand.
  • Kamen Rider:
    • Kamen Rider Gaim is absolutely awash with these:
      • The show's title character Kouta, his main Love Interest Mai, and The Rival Kaito all have large portions of their profiles blanked out because about 3/4 of the way through the show they lose their humanity and become Overlords, beings with power over Helheim Forest, the Alien Kudzu that's invading the planet. For that matter, Kaito is effectively the Big Bad of the show's final story arc.
      • Mitsuzane "Micchy" Kureshima undergoes a massive Face–Heel Turn, going from Kouta's The Lancer and little brother figure to being The Heavy of the show's third story arc, all out of an unrequited crush on Mai. He even sides with the Overlords and (apparently) kills his own brother in pursuit of his goals. Even the fact that his brother survives and Micchy is given the opportunity to redeem himself at the end of the series are spoilers.
      • DJ Sagara, the goofy guy who livestreams the street-dancing in the first part of the show, is eventually revealed to be the avatar of Helheim and an analogue for the serpent in the Book of Genesis.
      • And just to cap things off we have Ryoji Hase, Kamen Rider Kurogake. He starts the show as one of Those Two Guys, a comedic duo with the other nut-themed Armored Rider...and then becomes the series' first casualty after he eats a Helheim fruit, turns into a monster, and is cruelly put down by an antagonistic Rider. Gen Urobuchi, Gaim's head writer, outright told Hase's actor that he was the show's equivalent to Mami Tomoe from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, in that both characters' deaths mark the first major turning point for their respective shows.
    • Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: Much like Gaim's Hase, Kiriya Kujo (Kamen Rider Lazer) is a Sacrificial Lion who's murdered at the end of the first story arc by Kuroto Dan. If that wasn't enough of a spoiler, he's later brought Back from the Dead as a Bugster.
      • Speaking of which, Kuroto himself gets killed just before the start of the Kamen Rider Chronicle arc, and the heroes have to revive him because his programming skills are needed to deal with larger threats.
      • The show's protagonist, Emu Hojo, is somehow able to use the Transformation Trinket without having undergone the "compatibility surgery" (read: getting vaccinated against the Bugster virus) that the other Doctor Riders needed. Soon enough, it's revealed that Emu was Patient Zero for the Bugster virus. On top of this, the antagonist Parado, who was in the show from the first episode, is revealed to be the Bugster born from Emu. While fans were able to guess some of this (for example, Emu and Parado's reveal was foreshadowed by the fact that their actors look alike), a bigger one late in the series is that Parado undergoes a Heel–Face Turn after Emu forces him to understand the concept of mortality.
      • And just to cap things off, Kuroto's father Masamune is first shown in prison, apparently having been framed for a crime by Kuroto many years ago so he could assume control of Genm Corporation. Then in the middle of the Chronicle arc he comes striding back into the spotlight, claiming both the power of Kamen Rider Chronus and the title of the show's Big Bad for himself, all while revealing that going to jail was part of a Long Game he pulled on everyone — even his own son.
    • Kamen Rider Build, dipping back into the old-school formula from the franchise's past, managed to rack up a couple of big Walking Spoilers by the end of the very first story arc:
      • The inciting incident that kicks off the series is the murder of an engineer named Takumi Katsuragi, a man known as the "Demon Scientist". That's about all you can say about him before you start getting into spoilers, since it's soon revealed that Katsuragi created both the Smash and the Kamen Riders as part of a secret government Super-Soldier project. And then the show reveals that his death was faked, and that the series' protagonist Sento Kiryu is Katsuragi after having his memories erased and his face altered. Naturally, this also results in large portions of Sento's character profile being spoilered.
      • Soichi Isurugi starts off the series as the eccentric but kindly coffee shop owner who found the amnesiac Sento and plays Team Dad to the heroes. However, by the end of the first story arc it's revealed that he's the villain Blood Stalk and that he's personally responsible for much of the trouble in the series, including the Skywall Disaster and Sento's amnesia. On top of that, he aided the good guys because it furthered Faust's plans — which included manipulating and exploiting his own daughter Misora.
  • Life had Rachel Seybolt, who was adopted by the man who killed her family.
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power:
    • Charlie Vickers had no idea he was going to play Sauron. He learned only during the filming of the third episode that Halbrand and Sauron are the same character.
    • The Stranger from the meteor has no name and no identity. Initially, it's hinted he may be Sauron, but at the end of Season 1 we learn that he is in fact one of the Istari, and the future Gandalf.
  • Lost has two that stand out in a plot that's already hard to sum up without spoilers: The Man in Black, the Big Bad; and Jacob, the Big Good. It helps both only appear in the flesh in the penultimate season.
  • It's impossible to talk about the Asset from The Mandalorian without spoiling the First-Episode Twist.
  • Mr. Robot:
    • First off, the titular character. He's a pretty important character throughout the first season, but we never learn any personal details or even his name until the end of the season. Then come the last few episodes, and surprise, he's a subconscious manifestation of Elliot's dead father Edward Alderson, and no one else sees or hears him, so every scene he's been in didn't happen the way we, or Elliot, thought it did.
    • When the show's first season aired, both Elliot and the audience thought that Darlene was just a very aggressive Manic Pixie Dream Girl. A new viewer going in now is likely to know from the start that she is his younger sister.
  • Nikita's former mentor Carla, who is also the third founder of Division.
  • Once Upon a Time:
    • Baelfire, especially after The Reveal that he's also Neal Cassidy, Emma's former boyfriend and Henry's dad.
    • As of season 4, we have Elsa from Frozen (2013).
  • Orphan Black has several of these. Helena is one, since not only has she killed several characters that are important to the plot, in the season 1 finale she is assumed to be dead, before it's shown that she's actually alive in the season 2 premiere. The season 2 finale made the Prolethian Mark Rollins into this, since it's revealed that he is also a clone from the heretofore unknown Project CASTOR. In season 3, they find the original for both the Leda and Castor clones — who happens to be Siobhan's mother, Kendall Malone.
  • The Orville has the Kaylon race, who are spoilers not in their existence, but in their actions. Specifically, they are a race of Absolute Xenophobes bent on the extermination of all organic life. Previously, it was assumed that they were like the ship's lone Kaylon, Isaac, who acts more like a relatively benign Robot Buddy.
  • The Outpost: The fact that Gwynn is actually Princess Rosmund, the heir to the old kingdom's throne, is revealed early on.
  • Person of Interest
    • Season 1: Charlie Burton (the alias of Carl Elias). Kara Stanton (Reese's supposed to be dead ex-partner). Caroline Turing/Root.
    • Season 2: Alonzo Quinn, the head of HR.
    • Season 3: Arthur Claypool, Harold and Nathan's other friend and the creator of Samaritan, Diane Claypool/Control.
  • Power Rangers:
  • Princess Serenity from Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon blew up the moon and rendered Earth barren for god knows how many years.
  • Michael and Lincoln's mother, Christina Scofield, in Prison Break. Season 1 shows us her funeral in a flashback, and season 2 goes out of its way to establish that she was a good, devoted mother, mainly to contrast with their father who walked out on both of them at a young age (despite having a good reason for it). And then along came season 4, which not only reveals she's alive, but she's also an Evil Matriarch and the final Big Bad.
  • Resurrection: Ertuğrul: The name Sugay cannot even be brought up unless one mentions Halime’s untimely death after giving birth to Osman near the end of the fourth season.
    • Another season 4 example would be Almila/Alangoya. Where to begin? First, she only shows up after Ertugrul slays Kopek, who appeared to be the only other antagonist (Besides the Tekfur of Bilecik) left for him to defeat for the past few episodes. Then, we find out that she’s Noyan’s sister, and that her big sibling had actually survived his supposed defeat season 2.
    • A season 5 example, meanwhile, would be Arikbuka, the final antagonist that Ertugrul comes face-to-face with in the series. Not only is he never brought up prior to his introduction late into the season, but so much as trying to bring the character into a discussion would require mentioning that he revived Beybolat/Albasti after the latter leaped off a cliff in order to prevent Ertugrul from executing him.
  • Revolution: The President of the United States. His very existence is a secret not revealed until the last few scenes of the first season finale. Not to mention the fact that the US government apparently had been living in an American colony in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the fact that Randall Flynn had been on mission to fix the blackout on their behalf.
  • Russian Doll: Alan is revealed to be stuck in the same "Groundhog Day" Loop as Nadia in Episode 3. It's so disruptive to the events up to that point that the work page has no choice but to untag all spoilers related to this.
  • Scandal:
    • Becky, Huck's girlfriend. In a couple of episodes, she went from being a minor character to being a deadly villain who had shot the President and set up Huck to be the fall guy.
    • Rowan Pope, aka "Control". Just knowing his surname and title spoils the major twist that he is both Olivia's father and the head of B613, the ultra-black-ops government agency whose plot dominates the third and fourth seasons, accounting entirely for the show's shift from political drama to straight-up spy thriller.
  • The season 1 finale of Sleepy Hollow has a character drop both Luke, You Are My Father and Evil All Along in the very last scene, making him one of the most important characters in the show, but in a way that's impossible to talk about without spoiling the reveal.
  • Smallville:
    • The entire character of Davis Bloome is built around the fact that he is the human side of Doomsday. Even the actor's name has to be spoilered because the monster is played by a different actor.
    • Superboy as well, since he spent most of his screen time as Lex Luthor's creepy young clone.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: You can't talk about Ezri Dax (and her status as a permanent cast member) without spoiling. Because Dax's host is Jadzia, and the symbiont only joins with a new host when the previous one dies... oh.
  • Star Trek: Discovery: Several characters, to the point where the series character sheet has a warning linking to the main page for this trope.
    • Captain Gabriel Lorca is actually the Mirror Universe version who impersonates his prime counterpart for almost the entire first season. He fools everyone, including Michael Burnham, Admiral Katrina Cornwell (psychologist/Lorca's Old Flame), and Saru (whose species has a death sense that Lorca avoids triggering).
    • Ash Tyler is actually Voq, Klingon spy with a pretty terrible case of Split Personality activated by a Klingon Trigger Phrase. The fact that this is the case was hidden even during production—a pseudonym was used for Voq's actor and Shazad Latif was tied to a different Klingon during production. Ash Tyler looks human, acts human, and even scans as human enough that specialized Starfleet tests designed to catch The Mole fail to detect two personalities, though Dr. Hugh Culber notices a few physical abnormalities. This costs him his life.
    • The Emperor of the Terran Empire is the Mirror Universe version of Philippa Georgiou.
  • Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard introduces Jack Crusher. His name alone makes it clear that his mother is Dr. Beverly Crusher; the next major reveal is that his father is Beverly's on-and-off lover, Adm. (ret) Jean-Luc Picard.
  • Stranger Things: Vecna is introduced as the Big Bad of Season 4 (and, by extension, the entire series). However, it's hard to talk about him without eventually bringing up that he's an alter ego of One, who in turn is an alter ego of Henry Creel. His existence is so spoilerific that, when new characters were revealed for Season 4, his orderly alter-ego was called "Peter Ballard" (a name that was never used on the show).
  • Supergirl
    • Throughout the early episodes, it is hinted quite strongly that DEO Director Hank Henshaw may already be his comic book counterpart, the Cyborg Superman. And then Episode Seven comes along, and reveals that the original Henshaw died years ago, and the man who has been impersonating him for years is actually J'onn J'onzz, aka the Martian Manhunter.
    • Season 2 reveals that the real Hank Henshaw is still alive and is the Cyborg Superman, working for Cadmus.
    • Season 4 has a couple of these:
      • While he's been mentioned several times in passing, the fact that Lex Luthor himself appears sometime after the halfway point of the season and is the mastermind behind everything that has happened that season is a big spoiler.
      • Red Daughter, a clone of Supergirl that Lex decided to mold into an Evil Counterpart of the superheroine, as well as her backstory, is another spoiler-ish character.
      • President Baker becomes this after the end of the third-to-last episode of the season drops a bombshell by revealing him to be an associate of Lex, putting his prior actions under a whole different light.
  • Super Sentai, due to being a Long Runner, obviously has its fair share of these characters. Naturally, this type of character also appears in its American adaptation, Power Rangers.
    • Gosei Sentai Dairanger has Master Kaku and Kameo. Kameo appears as a socially awkward overweight man with an obsession for turtles, but is actually the human form of a powerful sentient tortoise mecha. Master Kaku is the mentor of the Dairangers and a former member of the antagonistic Gorma Tribe. He defected from them, as he did not like their violent way of life. He later tries to use his blood ties to the current Gorma Emperor to inherit the throne for himself, wanting to use this position to stop the fighting.
    • Gien and Captain Ryuya Asami of Mirai Sentai Timeranger. The former ultimately goes insane and becomes the final opponent of the series, killing off the apparent Big Bad Don Dolnero. The latter, however, is the true Big Bad of the series, having kickstarted the events of the series to save his own life via sacrificing Naoto and leaving the rest of the cast to die by Gien's hands. Their counterparts in Power Rangers Time Force, Frax and Alex, also count, but to a lesser extent due to the presence of Ransik, an original character who maintains Big Bad status to the end, and the fact that Alex is not a villain like Ryuya.
    • Mack, the Red Ranger from Power Rangers Operation Overdrive, has half of his character tropes spoiler-tagged (the rest of his teammates, by comparison, either have none or one each). He's an android.
    • All of the events of Juken Sentai Gekiranger are set in motion by Long, who is an immortal dragon god trying to find sick ways to entertain himself. Most of the time, this entertainment involves rampant destruction and death. He was the one who indirectly created the antagonistic faction thousands of years ago and put the current Big Bad Rio in charge of it by making him an orphan. The powerlessness of not being able to save his parents caused Rio to become power hungry.
    • Kaoru Shiba from Samurai Sentai Shinkenger is the second Red Ranger and true head of the Shiba family rather than Takeru, who was nothing more than a Body Double and not even part of the family. That is until she adopts him and makes him her official heir. Her American counterpart in Power Rangers Samurai, Lauren Shiba , has an identical plotline, with the difference that the first red ranger Jayden is her real brother.
  • Teen Wolf
    • Matt Daehler. Seemingly a minor character, he practically embodies From Nobody to Nightmare when he is revealed to be The Kid with the Remote Control that has been using the Kanima to kill people since the beginning of the second season. Since this pivotal aspect of his character is only revealed when the season is almost over, nearly all of his character tropes have to be spoilered.
    • The other two seasons have each had a villain like that. Peter from Season 1 initially appears to be a vegetable in an intensive care facility (having hidden the fact that he's been slowly healing himself), while Jennifer from Season 3 initially appears to be a dorky Hot Teacher, only to be revealed as the mass-murdering dark druid who's been kidnapping and sacrificing people all season.
  • Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has two examples:
    • Catherine Weaver, on two nested levels. First is the fact that she's a liquid-metal Terminator, revealed at the end of her first episode. The second, which takes much longer to become clear, is that she's not working for Skynet but is a Wild Card AI with complete free will.
    • John Henry, the innocent child AI whom Weaver and her team create and who comes to control the body of the show's original Big Bad, the Terminator known as Cromartie.
  • Tomica Hero Rescue Force: The true Big Bad, Batsu, possesses Daaen and later assumes the guise of Maaen.
  • Twin Peaks: Who killed Laura Palmer? It's more or less given in the first season and at the beginning of season two that it was the mysterious demonic Humanoid Abomination BOB, but BOB just so happened to be inhabiting the body of Laura's father, Leland.
  • Ugly Betty: Alexis Meade, just by virtue of existing, gives away the major midseason twist that Alexander Meade is not only alive, but now a woman.
  • Under the Dome
    • Pauline Rennie, Big Jim's wife and Junior's mother, is thought to have died years prior. It turns out she knew the dome was coming and faked her death as part of trying to save Chester's Mill.
    • There's also Melanie, a girl who shows up at the start of Season 2, and is later to be revealed to be Barbie's half-sister who was killed 25 years prior to the events of the show. Later during the season, she's shown to have some connection to the dome.
  • Veronica Mars: Cassidy "Beaver" Casablancas has about half of the tropes applying to him spoiler-tagged.
  • The main focus of Sophia in The Walking Dead is about her being lost and turning into a walker.
  • Watchmen (2019):
  • Westworld:
    • Bernard is actually a host based on Ford's dead partner, Arnold, who is killed by Dolores as a means to shut down the park, in a failed attempt to save the hosts from being abused by humans.
    • The Man in Black is an older version of William who became very cynical about the park. He's also responsible for saving the park from being shut down after Arnold's death and for starting a secret project to collect guest data in preparation for making host-human hybrids as a way to achieve immortality.
  • You: Almost all of Love Quinn’s tropes are spoiler-tagged, as the Season 2 finale tosses aside her Nice Girl image to reveal that she’s actually a deranged serial killer.
  • Legacies: The very existence of the show, with Hope Mikaelson as the central character, spoils that something bad must happen to the majority of the characters in The Originals, as her parents and extended family would never let her face danger on her own if they were around to protect her.

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top