Markup View

Author: 69BookWorM69

Jul 20th 2012 at 6:36:28 PM

^^Huh? Why different ideas? This a general supertrope for characters who are strangers to the other characters and the audience, such that their relationships to the other characters (and their place in the plot, specifically, friend or foe) are unclear, particularly when first introduced. The name comes from Mark Twain's short story, as indicated above.

^ Very true. As noted earlier in the comments, this one does happen a lot in westerns, especially since the frontier is apt to have people coming from elsewhere. There's often a lot of people remaking themselves (change your name, move to town, tell your new neighbours as much or as little of your personal history as you like). Detective works frequently have it too, especially if the sleuth is being followed by someone (who may be a minion of another character and/or have his own interest in the sleuth's activities).

@ Discar Glad you like it. It is tagged UpForGrabs, so I took some initiative. Do let me know what you think of the other related tropes I listed. There may even be more, but some of them seem to be other subtropes (PowersThatBe and [=TOCOV=] would be groups of such characters, rather than single characters). TheFaceless, TheGhost, SinisterSilhouettes and EmergingFromTheShadows are among the ways such characters might be depicted to retain their mystery.