History Main / ExpositionVictim

!!Examples

* Grimble from the ''ComicBook/{{Fables}}'' series figures out some holes in Werien Holt's story of being an ordinary fencer enslaved by Mr. Dark, and pulls a gun on him. Too bad Holt wasn't lying about his fencing skills.

[[folder:Film]]
* Happened off-screen in ''Film/SinCity'' when SerialKiller Kevin kidnaps Marv's parole officer.
* ''Film/SpaceMutiny'' features one officer who yells "This is treason! Which I must report!" When he realizes the villain's traitorous plans. To said traitor and 4 of his hand-picked men. He doesn't make it out of the room.

-->'''Plankton''': We'll see about that, Inspector Loose-Lips! *Presses the doomsday button*
* ''Film/KnivesOut'': It turns out that when Fran was dying she wasn't saying "You did this", she was saying "Hugh did this", as he murdered her after she confronted him alone and isolated telling him that she had proof that he was behind the first murder.

* ''{{Series/Dollhouse}}'' - second season. Sierra is made to return to the evil, evil man who forced her into the Dollhouse, permanently imprinted to love him this time. Topher finds a heart and gives her her original personality. So what does she do? Instead of bashing the guy on the head at the first opportunity, she sits there and smirks and is super-smug about how she never, ever, really loved him, and how she's in love with another man - what did she think was going to happen? Of course he starts beating the crap out of her and attempts to rape her.
* In "Forbidden Fruit", an episode of ''{{Series/Taggart}}'', the first victim's daughter notices that the killer knows something about the victim's house that he shouldn't proving that he is the killer. Instead of accepting his feeble explanation and going off to call the police, she continued to badger him with questions. Strangulation ensues.

---> '''The Doctor''': And that's my problem! Yap, yap, yap, never know when to stop talking! You want to know how I've survived this long? ''Always stand right next to the door''. *Uses his sonic screwdriver to activate a trapdoor*
* In the second season of ''Series/{{Forbrydelsen}}'', Lund does this quite deliberately to the killer to bait him into giving himself away. [[spoiler:He gives himself away by shooting her, but she's wearing a BulletProofVest.]] She also tries it in the third season, [[spoiler:but the killer doesn't fall for it and she blows his brains all over his car instead.]]

[[folder:Web Video]]
* ''WebVideo/CyanideAndHappiness'': [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swKymZSTUJk&ab_channel=ExplosmEntertainment The World's Greatest Detective]] is not the world's greatest planner, because the usual "expose the victim in front of a crowd of suspects and tackle them with numbers" method doesn't work when they expose ''all'' of the suspects as part of a murder conspiracy. Then the detective has the gall to order the conspiracy to respectfully turn themselves in. [[note]]And since he has a reputation as the world's greatest detective, they only staffed the police outside with rank-and-file who don't even try to wonder [[TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch how the detective killed himself in nine simultaneous ways]].[[/note]]

* ''WebVideo/CyanideAndHappiness'': [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swKymZSTUJk&ab_channel=ExplosmEntertainment The World's Greatest Detective]] is not the world's greatest planner, because the usual "expose the victim in front of a crowd of suspects and tackle them with numbers" method doesn't work when they expose ''all'' of the suspects as part of a murder conspiracy. [[WhatAnIdiot Then the detective has the gall to order the conspiracy to respectfully turn themselves in]]. [[note]]And since he has a reputation as the world's greatest detective, they only staffed the police outside with rank-and-file who don't even try to wonder [[TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch how the detective killed himself in nine simultaneous ways]].[[/note]]

Sometimes the {{viewers are morons}}, but sometimes the characters are even worse. In a story where a potential victim ends up AloneWithThePsycho, he or she will, upon working it out, stand there and bark questions at them instead of running away. Because obviously, cross-questioning a potential murderer about how he knew the victim was missing her wedding ring is a much more productive use of your time than clubbing him over the head with a brick and taking to the hills.

-->''The Doctor'': And that's my problem! Yap, yap, yap, never know when to stop talking! You want to know how I've survived this long? ''Always stand right next to the door''. *Uses his sonic screwdriver to activate a trapdoor*

[[[/folder]]

[[AC:Comic Books]]

[[AC:Film]]

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]

[[AC:Web Video]]

* In the ''Series/{{Angel}}'' pilot episode "City Of...", Cordelia notices that the house she's in has no reflective surfaces at all. Out loud, she realizes that she's in a vampire's house and challenges the owner -- until her Sunnydale instincts catch up with her mouth and she tries to pretend that she was joking.

** And in Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead he almost gets captured by a sentient alien virus when he tries to parley with one of their hosts to figure out why they're in a space museum in the first place, and by the time he realizes they survived their tree hosts being pulped into books, he's completely forgotten that the virus can quickly execute anyone in the shadows and take over their body in less than ten seconds, and can even mimic their voice so anyone who hasn't seen them turn will keep hearing the last thing they said. Which includes his escort, who is now flanking his position.

* ''Movie/TheSpongebobMovie'': Squidward quickly deduces Plankton's Frame-Up scheme and threatens to tell King Neptune about it... in the middle of Plankton's restaurant.

** And in https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead he almost gets captured by a sentient alien virus when he tries to parley with one of their hosts to figure out why they're in a space museum in the first place, and by the time he realizes they survived their tree hosts being pulped into books, he's completely forgotten that the virus can quickly execute anyone in the shadows and take over their body in less than ten seconds, especially if they've been saying the same phrase for the past minute. Which includes his escort.

Sometimes the {{viewers are morons}}, but sometimes the characters are even worse. In a story where a potential victim ends up alone with the episode's killer/monster/general villain, he or she will, upon working it out, stand there and bark questions at them instead of running away. Because obviously, cross-questioning a potential murderer about how he knew the victim was missing her wedding ring is a much more productive use of your time than clubbing him over the head with a brick and taking to the hills.

Usually the good guys turn up JustInTime to stop the victim from buying the farm, thus throwing a wrench into the Darwinist machine once again.

Compare HaveYouToldAnyoneElse.

* Happened off-screen in ''SinCity'' when SerialKiller Kevin kidnaps Marv's parole officer.

* In the ''Series/{{Angel}}'' pilot episode "City Of...", Cordelia notices that the house she's in has no reflective surfaces at all. Out loud, she realizes that she's in a vampire's house and challenges the owner -- until her Sunnydale instincts catch up with her mouth and she tries to pretend that she was joking. [[HilarityEnsues And wackiness ensues]]

** The Doctor does a really stupid version of this in the story [[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E3TheRescue "The Rescue"]]. (Note that the First Doctor is sufficiently un-uber that a human murderer could pose a threat to him.) The only reason he isn't killed is because two other characters turn up in a way that could have been pre-arranged, but isn't played that way.

* Semi-averted in the new ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}''. When the Cylon detector reveals that Boomer is a sleeper agent, Baltar realizes that it would probably be a bad idea to confront her with this while there is no one else around. He fakes the test result to say she is human. Then he promptly decides never to tell ''anyone ever'' rather than go immediately report her after she leaves and to thereafter just fake doing the test and say everyone came back human.

* ''{{Dollhouse}}'' - second season. Sierra is made to return to the evil, evil man who forced her into the Dollhouse, permanently imprinted to love him this time. Topher finds a heart and gives her her original personality. So what does she do? Instead of bashing the guy on the head at the first opportunity, she sits there and smirks and is super-smug about how she never, ever, really loved him, and how she's in love with another man - what did she think was going to happen? Of course he starts beating the crap out of her and attempts to rape her.
* In "Forbidden Fruit", an episode of ''{{Taggart}}'', the first victim's daughter notices that the killer knows something about the victim's house that he shouldn't proving that he is the killer. Instead of accepting his feeble explanation and going off to call the police, she continued to badger him with questions. Strangulation ensues.

* The Doctor does a really stupid version of this in the ''Series/DoctorWho'' story ''The Rescue''. (Note that the First Doctor is sufficiently un-uber that a human murderer could pose a threat to him.) The only reason he isn't killed is because two other characters turn up in a way that could have been prearranged, but isn't played that way.
** He does this all the time. Lampshaded in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E06TheVampiresOfVenice "The Vampires of Venice"]], when he pauses in fleeing the gang of [[OurVampiresAreDifferent fanged alien fish-women]] to turn back and say, "Tell me the whole plan!" They just hiss menacingly, and he mutters, "One day that'll work," and turns to run again. (This is quite early in the episode; otherwise it ''would'' have worked.)

** In series five while being menaced by creepy sharp-toothed sun-fearing young women The Doctor stands there asking them to explain the situation. To give him his due he does at least run away when they don't answer him.

* Grimble from the ''Fables'' series figures out some holes in Werien Holt's story of being an ordinary fencer enslaved by Mr. Dark, and pulls a gun on him. Too bad Holt wasn't lying about his fencing skills.

* In the second season of ''{{Forbrydelsen}}'', Lund does this quite deliberately to the killer to bait him into giving himself away. [[spoiler:He gives himself away by shooting her, but she's wearing a BulletProofVest.]] She also tries it in the third season, [[spoiler:but the killer doesn't fall for it and she blows his brains all over his car instead.]]