History Main / TheyreNotRealReveal

->Oo wa wa? Hey, where'd he go!? Did he disappear? Or was he never there to begin with?
-->--'''Nappa''', ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged''

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13389527/1/Hide-and-Seek Hide and Seek]]'', it ends on the reveal that [[DarkFic none of the Loud girls are actually real]] and [[DisabledInTheAdaptation Lincoln is just hallucinating them]].

* Inverted in ''Film/CloakAndDagger''. Jack Flack, a role-playing character and imaginary friend of the Main/KidHero, is presented as such from the very beginning. Then later in the film, Jack Flack attempts to create a distraction and draw a bad guy's fire away from our hero. Curiously, it somehow works: the bad guy's attention and gunfire are diverted, and Jack Flack later "dies" from gunshot wounds. It is never fully explained how or why Jack Flack was able to manifest himself into the real world, if only briefly (he disappears again after "dying" but then has some final words for our hero afterward).

* ''Series/AvataroSentaiDonbrothers'': One of the major reveals late in the series is that SixthRanger Jiro's friends, including his LoveInterest Rumi, were all illusions created by his stepfather, who was also one of the rare Penguin Juto, in order to keep Jiro sedate and provide him with a reason to return home -- and eventually become the Penguin Juto's new host.
* ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'': PlayedWith. In "[[Recap/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphiaS04E10SweetDeeHasAHeartAttack Sweet Dee Has a Heart Attack]]", Mac and Charlie get hired at a very stressful job in an office building's mailroom. Charlie says he met a man named Barney who tipped him off that many of the office's employees, such as Pepe Silvia and Carol in HR, don't actually exist and were made up some massive fraud scheme. Charlie tells Mac, who replies that all those people definitely ''do'' exist, and they're very upset about not getting their mail. Charlie also realizes mid-conversation that Barney, who's shown standing in the mailroom with them, doesn't exist either.
-->'''Mac:''' Barney?! Who the hell is Barney?!
-->'''Charlie:''' YOU DON'T SEE BAR- oh, shit. Where the hell did he-?
-->'''Mac:''' You've lost your mind. You've lost your goddamn mind, Charlie!
* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}:'' Throughout the episode ''[[Recap/ScrubsS3E14MyScrewUp My Screw Up]]'', Dr. Cox is seen speaking to his friend Ben about a patient that died under J.D.'s care. At the end they are both seen at an event, where it's revealed that Ben was just an imagination and Cox is actually [[DeadAllAlong at his funeral]] because Ben was the patient that died.
* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode, "Spectre of the Gun," Spock realizes that there was ''nothing'' real about the surreal Melkotian recreation of Tombstone, Arizona, and that Kirk, Spock, [=McCoy=], and Scott could defeat the Earps without firing a single shot, simply by having absolute confidence in the unreality of the situation. In the end, they learn that they'd never left the ship, and that even Chekov's death had been unreal. The Melkotians were suitably impressed.
* In the ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' episode "Doctor's Orders", Phlox and T'Pol run the ship alone while the rest of the crew are in stasis to protect them from a harmful anomaly. At the end of the episode, Phlox sees T'Pol asleep like everyone else, and realises he was just hallucinating her being with him.
* ''Series/{{Yellowjackets}}'' Lottie is horrified to realize that her psychiatrist, who's been urging Lottie to embrace her visions and dig deeper into her memories, not only isn't real, but appears to her as the Antler Queen (an embodiment of the Wilderness that drove the survivors to unspeakable things) speaking in a VoiceOfTheLegion.

* ''Series/You2018'': In season 4, Joe has several interactions with writer and politician Rhys Montrose, [[spoiler:who is revealed halfway through the season to be killing off the rich group Joe had fallen in with, all while intensely stalking Joe.]] The plot then becomes Joe trying to defeat Rhys, eventually snapping and killing him... only for Joe to then have a moment of clarity where he realizes that Rhys never met him before. All this time, he'd been hallucinating a villainous version of the real guy due to severe mental stress and an unwillingness to confront the fact that [[spoiler:he himself was the killer once again]]; Rhys Montrose the politician was innocent and unrelated to he rest of the cast.

* ''Theatre/NextToNormal'' follows Diana Goodman and her family, husband Dan, son Gabe, and daughter Natalie. Diana suffers from extreme bipolar disorder, but the rest of the family thinks she has it under control...until she brings out a cake for Gabe's 18th birthday and the room falls silent; Gabe actually died as an infant, and the young man we've been seeing is nothing but Diana's hallucination.

* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedMirage'' has [[spoiler:Basim's closest childhood friend Nehal]]. Throughout the game players thought she was real, but if one notices that she was mostly there when no one was around or when nobody talked to her, [[ImaginaryFriend it's clear that she was all in his head]].
* ''VideoGame/BendyAndTheDarkRevival'' reveals that several people, including [[spoiler:the previous game's player character, Henry Stein,]] are actually inky clones inspired by people Joey knew in real life, and the entire world the game takes place in is an artificial pocket dimension.

* ''VideoGame/DeadlyPremonition'': Francis York Morgan is an eccentric FBI agent who talks to an invisible friend named Zach and inexplicably gets called "Scar face" despite having a barely noticeable scar by the residents of the town [[spoiler: in the game's climax, it reveals that York is an otherworldly entity who had been piloting Zach's body due to the latter being catatonic due to childhood trauma, and once Zach takes control, the illusion drops for the player, showing that Zach has white hair and a massive and extremely noticeable facial scar]]

* ''VideoGame/Psychonauts2'' reveals some cruel realities about [[spoiler:the Aquatos, Razputin's family. Raz's "grandmother", Marona, is actually his grand-''aunt'', Lucrecia Mux, AKA Maligula, the Deluge of Grulovia. Lucrecia and Augustus, her nephew, were brainwashed into thinking they were mother and son by Ford Cruller in an attempt to hide her from the world; twenty years later, it comes back to bite ''the entirety of the Psychonauts organization'']].

* On ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'', specifically in "[[Recap/AmericanDadS3E2TheAmericanDadAfterSchoolSpecial The American Dad After School Special]]", Stan gets a personal trainer to help him lose weight. It turns out the trainer was all in Stan's head and he was just starving himself all along.
* In ''WesternAnimation/FinalSpace'': Little Cato and other members of the team are trapped behind a time crystal, for ''50 years'' while time on the other side stays the same. But it turns out, said other members were never with him.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheRealGhostbusters'': Non-psychological example; In "Transylvanian Homesick Blues", a town called Boldavia is supposedly being attacked by [[BatOutOfHell evil bat-like creatures]]. However, they turn out to just be holograms (explaining why the PKE meter didn't detect them) that were made by the main villain to scare the citizens.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'': In "Under Chuckie's Bed", we see what appears to be a [[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight monster under Chuckie's bed]] throughout the episode. At the end, this is revealed to have simply been Chas's sweater.

** {{Subverted|Trope}} in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS16E16DontFearTheRoofer Don't Fear The Roofer]]" where Homer befriends a roofer named Ray (voiced by Creator/RayRomano). Marge tells him his friend doesn't exist. Until it's revealed that at the end he was actually [[RealAfterAll real]].
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS34E3LisaTheBoyScout Lisa The Boy Scout]]", one of the unaired shark-jumping scenes the hackers broadcast involves Homer and Moe telling Carl that Lenny never existed and was only a figment of his imagination. Of course, this reveal, like all the other clips, is non-canon.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': In "No Pictures Please", Patrick takes a tourist named Rube around town, causing chaos wherever they go. When an angry mob confronts Rube, he apologizes and says that he didn't actually take pictures of anyone; and more than that, he's ''not even real'', suddenly disappearing into thin air. Patrick and the crowd are horrified and run away.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'': After dying in the season three finale, the apparent ghost of Henchman 24 appears to Henchman 21 throughout season four, with the latter believing him to be real as he searches for 24's killer. In the season four finale, "ghost" 24 turns out to be a grief-induced hallucination (21 figures it out when 24 mentions talking to the ghost of someone else that 21 later finds out to be alive), causing 24's "ghost" to stop appearing.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

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* ''VideoGame/Persona5'' reveals in its final hours that [[spoiler:Morgana isn't actually a human being turned into a Shadow-like creature, but a construct created by Igor in the moments before Yaldabaoth took over, representing the collective hope of humankind]].

* The ''Anime/OsomatsuSan'' Season 2 episode "Imaginary Friend" focuses on the Matsuno brothers recalling when they all had imaginary friends in high school. Meanwhile, Choromatsu Matsuno reunites with his high school friend and both go on a subplot together. At the end of the episode, the audience learns that ''even the school buddy'' was an imaginary friend, as no one but Choromatsu could see and interact with him.

* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode, "Spectre of the Gun," Spock realizes that there was ''nothing'' real about the surreal Melkotian recreation of Tombstone, Arizona, and that Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scott could defeat the Earps without firing a single shot, simply by having absolute confidence in the unreality of the situation. In the end, they learn that they'd never left the ship, and that even Chekov's death had been unreal. The Melkotians were suitably impressed.

Contrast RealAfterAll (which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin). Related to DeadAllAlong (which is because the not-real character in question ''used to be real'' and is dead at the time of The reveal). NotSoImaginaryFriend is a character you thought wasn't real but was real all along. If a character finds this out about themselves, it may very well be a TomatoInTheMirror. May be part of a larger reveal that ItWasAllInLeHead.

->Oo-wa-waa? Hey! Where?d he go! Did he disappear, or was he never there to begin with?

* Inverted in ''Film/CloakAndDagger''. Jack Black, a role-playing character and imaginary friend of the Main/KidHero, is presented as such from the very beginning. Then later in the film, Jack Black attempts to create a distraction and draw a bad guy's fire away from our hero. Curiously, it somehow works: the bad guy's attention and gunfire are diverted, and Jack Black later "dies" from gunshot wounds. It is never fully explained how or why Jack Black was able to manifest himself into the real world, if only briefly (he disappears again after "dying" but then has some final words for our hero afterward).

* In ''Film/Tully'', the titular nanny is revealed to be a hallucination of the extremely exhausted and sleep-deprived protagonist Marlo, representing who she used to be when she was younger. This is first revealed by Marlo's husband stating to doctors that "Tully" is Marlo's maiden name.

** John's college roommate Charles, who's there despite John having been assigned to a one-man dorm room. He's the first character to be revealed to the audience as nonexistent, when John talks to Charles and a psychiatrist notices that there's nobody else in the room. It takes far longer to recognize the delusion, though, resulting in his infant son almost drowning in the bath because he thinks that Charles is watching the baby.

Contrast RealAfterAll (which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin). Related to DeadAllAlong (which is because the not-real character in question ''used to be real'' and is dead at the time of The reveal). NotSoImaginaryFriend is a character you thought wasn't real but was real all along. If a character finds this out about themselves, it may very well be a TomatoInTheMirror.

* ''VideoGame/DeadlyPremonitions'': Francis York Morgan is an eccentric FBI agent who talks to an invisible friend named Zach and inexplicably gets called "Scar face" despite having a barely noticeable scar by the residents of the town [[spoiler: in the game's climax, it reveals that York is an otherworldly entity who had been piloting Zach's body due to the latter being catatonic due to childhood trauma, and once Zach takes control, the illusion drops for the player, showing that Zach has white hair and a massive and extremely noticeable facial scar]]

* ''Film/Joker2019'' has Arthur's girlfriend, who turns out was never with him during most of her screen time. The real woman has no idea who he is!