Mr Exposition / Literature

• Erek King from Animorphs. Originally a one-shot Contest Winner Cameo, he evolved into an Ascended Extra and later into this. Years after the series ended, Applegate candidly admitted in interviews that she'd gotten too reliant on using Erek as an expository device.
• The Chronicles of Narnia:
  • 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.
• Colt Regan: Joseph Cin is a bog standard example, all things considered.
• In C. J. 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 Dark is Rising. (In The Grey King, however, the job mostly falls to Will.)
• The Da Vinci Code
  • Robert Langdon of seems to be this at times, which creates the weird situation of the protagonist dumping exposition on the side characters.
  • And Sir Leigh Teabing at others.
• In the Deryni works, just as there many people who take the part of The Watson at different times, the part of this trope gets split among many characters, justified by the various levels of experience they have, particularly with regard to the magic.
  • Morgan and Duncan share this role as they prepare the early stages of Kelson's empowering ritual, complete with a demonstration when Morgan attunes his gryphon signet ring to Duncan so his cousin can use it to retrieve Brion's written ritual verse.
  • Duncan explains to an anxious Nigel about the rules for arcane combat during Kelson's coronation duel with Charissa in Deryni Rising.
  • Arilan can be very forthcoming, and he is among the most highly trained of Deryni, since his family have successfully hidden their magic for over two centuries. However, his long experience with the Camberian Council (his elder brother Jamyl and his uncle Seisyll were members before him) means he's apt to keep things to himself. The night Morgan and Duncan arranged for Kelson and Dhugal to experience merasha under controlled conditions, Arilan produces the very flask of drugged wine used to in Brion's assassination four years previously, which Arilan retrieved that day. Kelson goes white, Nigel gasps, Duncan crosses himself, and Morgan goes for Arilan's throat, only just pulling up short to clench his fist near Arilan's face.
• The Dinoverse books always have someone to spout off exposition about dinosaurs and contemporary plants. Bertram, a dinosaur geek fascinated by the Time Travel, makes sense; Janine, with only mild interest in the era, knowing about ankylosaurs and gas less so. Mr. London calling out exposition about big predatory dinosaurs while cringing in the mud is kind of jarring. Most of the other characters don't know a lot about these topics.
• In Dragon Queen, the old man gives a fair amount of exposition. How much it can be trusted is up for debate.
• In The Dresden Files this is the main role of the knowledge spirit Bob, with Harry asking "What was that thing that just attacked me?" happening roughly Once Per Book. According to the author, he made Bob inhabit a skull as a joke on a nickname possessed by characters who exist only to explain things — "talking heads". Harry himself also gets to exposit about magic a lot when he's around mundanes.
• Durarara!!'s resident nerdy motormouth, Shinra Kishitani, is usually the first to offer any sort of explanation as of the weirder elements of the series such as "how can Celty see, hear and smell if she has no head" or "how can Shizuo be so damn skinny and so damn strong at the same time?" The only one whoever seems particularly interested in Shinra's hypotheses are Shinra himself, so his explanations are typically either ignored (by Celty) or interrupted with physical harm (by Shizuo).
• The Empirium Trilogy: Most of Zahra's dialogue in Furyborn and Kingsbane is to explain to Eliana about the ways of the Old World. This is helpful, not just for Eliana (who thought the stories of the Old World where just that: stories), but also for the reader.
• Tabitha's butler in The Familiar of Zero spends about five unbroken minutes spilling Tabitha's back story to someone he'd never even heard of before who just happened to show up with Tabitha at her mansion. He may be doing this to counteract Tabitha's tendency not to explain anything whatsoever.
• In C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce, one of the ghosts that the narrator meets on the bus tells him how Hell works and why it's so empty (Everyone arrives at the same place, but since nobody can get along with anyone else, they quickly move away, and spread through the town), as lead-up to his point about why he's going up (most things in Hell can be gotten simply by imagining them, so he wants to go to Heaven to get ahold of something that can be called a commodity and use economics to force people to stay together).
• Harry Potter
  • Dumbledore fills this role quite a bit. From beyond the grave, at one point! He basically turns up in some inexplicable magical phenomenon that is barely even given a Hand Wave, and says 'Hi, here's a hastily thrown-together explanation to tie up ALL the loose ends so far, by the way, you're not really dead, go finish off the plot now, ya big ol' protagonist.'
  • Hermione does this on occasion, filling Ron and Harry in on some unknown magic they encounter — especially when it's information that can be learned from reading books or paying attention in class, which they tend not to do.
  • Ron usually fills Harry and Hermione (who were both raised by Muggles) in on aspects of Wizard culture that he learned by growing up in it.
  • Occasionally, Harry explains to the both of them some new info on the plot, but usually he just sums up Dumbledore's long speeches into neat little packages for the sake of the readers. This tends to distribute the buttload of exposition rather nicely.
• Haruhi Suzumiya hangs a lampshade on this; Kyon, the sarcastic narrator, constantly tells Koizumi, the Mr. Exposition character, that he talks too much and no one cares what he has to say.
• In J. R. R. 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.) Notably, as soon as Gandalf's research leads him to conclude that Bilbo and Frodo's little ring is in fact the One Ring, he goes straight back to Bag End and tells Frodo absolutely everything he needs to know about it.
• Anos Voldigoad, the eponymous "Misfit" of The Misfit of Demon King Academy is very fond of doing this to allies and enemies alike. For context, he was an extremely powerful and infamous Demon King who died 2,000 years ago and after reincarnating in the present-day with his powers and memories intact, he has discovered that technology, magic, and much of the world's history have been lost or outright mangled. In combat, he is all too happy to explain to his opponents exactly why their countermeasures, ambushes, and attacks are having zero effect on him. Outside of it, he is all too eager to go into lengthy explanations about magic and the world to set the record straight and because he's also a proud, arrogant individual who knows he's objectively right all the time.
• In Qualia the Purple, Tenjou is the one who introduces most of the physics concepts relevant for the story, which is understandable considering her position.
• Seijirō Kikuoka/Chrysheight from Sword Art Online debuts in the Compilation Movie as a person as a government agent who actively demands an exposition and then gives ones in return. He and Kirito make a field trip over this trope whenever they're onscreen together.
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: The Professor Aronnax and Captain Nemo take turns at it.
• Shizuno fills this role in the first episode for World Break: Aria of Curse for a Holy Swordsman, when explaining how the coliseum is in a different dimension than the school. Therefore any damage they suffer there doesn't transfer over when they go back. She also explains to Moroha about how summoning weapons works after Ranjou and Isurugi summon theirs.
• The newscasters from In the Year 2050: America's Religious Civil War frequently break up the action to discuss events over 30-years-old.
• 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. Contagious amnesia can apparently be a wonderful exposition tool so long as someone is immune.
• Looking Backward: Dr. Leete. He explains to Julian West everything that's changed so he'll adjust into the future US.
• The Machineries of Empire: The story is dispensing exposition very grudgingly and in small packets, but what little we get usually comes from Shuos Jedao explaining something to Cheris.
• Justified with Atsuko in My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!. Given that the story is taking place in the world of Fortune Lover (a game that she's played to 100% completion), she's able to fill in details for routes that Catarina didn't get the chance to play via flashbacks to her giving spoilers. Even her Big Damn Heroes moment boils down to her spirit giving Catarina spoilers about the secret route.
• In Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Mr. Quin, Mr Satterthwaite has a talent for describing the backstory lucidly and with the occasional poetic touch, and is frequently called on to exercise it. Played with a bit in that this is also his main detective talent; in the course of describing the situation to another character (and to the audience), he will often notice a detail or correlation of details that points to the solution.
• Noob:
  • Arthéon fills this role due to being the one the most interested in the game's background. Sometimes Omega Zell needs to get him to stop talking. Ivy and Couette fill this role in his absence and are better at only giving the information needed to understand the current situation and nothing else.
  • The setting being a fictional MMORPG, plenty of Non Player Characters are this.
• Orion: First Encounter: Sam spends most of her time trying to explain how the universe works to the crew if the Orion. Usually this happens with a straightforward explanation, followed by Blank Stare, followed by some kind of Layman's Terms.
• Ravelling Wrath: When Yali is chosen to be the Farseer, the Waiting God grants her access to all of the memories of dozens of previous Farseers. This gives her enormous amounts of information about the setting and history, which she doesn't hesitate to share.
• Several characters in Redshirts. Lampshaded in that, whenever the Narrative takes control, random information about the plot at hand will pop into a character's head, whether or not they have any way of knowing that information, and they will even sometimes automatically say it out loud to their own surprise.
• 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.
• 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.
• The Tantei Team KZ Jiken Note series has each member of The Team provide exposition on one area, so as to fulfill its edutainment mandate. The anime downplayed most of these, but mainly as a side effect of Compressed Adaptation.
  • The only example of this trope being retained in the anime is that of Kozuka, who has the tendency to provide this on factoids that may or may not be relevant to the case on hand, particularly scientific ones.
  • Wakatake often provides information on law, particularly about what actions broke which clauses of the Japanese Criminal Code.
  • Uesuka is already Good At Numbers, but as the son of doctors, he's the one to provide medical backgrounders.
  • Aya, as the Cunning Linguist, exposits on different languages.
  • Nanaki, as the Techno Wizard, provides expositions on computer science.
• In Those That Wake, the Librarian is this in the first book and its sequel.
• In Simon Hawke's Time Wars books, this role normally falls to Moses Forrester in his initial mission briefings to the Time Commandos.
• Scout, in To Kill a Mockingbird takes on this role. Even her brother Jem is more a part of the plot than she is.
• Isaac Asimov's "The Ugly Little Boy": Dr Hoskins is both the Director of Stasis Incorporated and the person Miss Fellowes learns the most from. His narrative role is to provide answers, but the way several of these answers are provided round out his characterization and deepen their not romantic relationship.
• Subverted in Wars of the Realm with Benjamin Berg - he's constantly infodumping on Drew, but he never talks about plot elements, only about the hyper-complex science he's working on (which usually has nothing to do with the plot). This makes his habit of exposition a characterization tool instead of turning him into the usual infodump machine.
• 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 accompanying Elayne, and Nynaeve, 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 it becomes clear that while the Aes Sedai are successfully using the Kin at least now and then, they are completely mistaken about the size of the group, when the leaders of the Kin explain that they number about 2,000.
• Herman Wouk's massive two-volume Door Stopper, The Winds of War/War and Remembrance, includes excerpts from a history of World War II written by a fictional German general, who provides brief summaries of the war's major battles and events, so that the reader will know what is going on in the chapters that follow.
• The World Inside Charles Mattern, in the book's first chapter, is this.

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