Remember The New Guy / Literature

• In Patrick Graham's The Apocalypse According to Marie, it turns out Marie had another friend of sorts in her city aside from Bannerman. The new guy in this case is a crazy old neighbour named Cayley who had never even mentioned in the previous book... and who turns out to be connected to the novel's plot, of course.
• One of the prequels to The Belgariad introduces Belmakor and Belsamber, two previously-unmentioned disciples of Aldur who both committed suicide shortly after the War of the Gods. Their deaths help explain how Mallorea ended up being such a huge blind spot for Aldur's disciples, as Belmakor and Belsambar would have been sent to gather reconnaissance in that region if they'd lived.
  • The disciples were mentioned in the series proper as having died in the distant past, though the details were not given until the prequels were published. Each map of the area where the disciples lived shows broken-down towers labeled with their names alongside the other disciples' towers.
• In the Darkwing Duck spinoff book "The Silly Canine Caper", Darkwing speaks as though he knows the villainess Anna Matronic and she also seems to be familiar with him but how they met never comes up.
• Played with in the Discworld book Interesting Times, which reintroduced Twoflower and introduced Twoflower's daughters, Pretty Butterfly and Lotus Blossom. Rincewind insists that Twoflower hasn't mentioned having children and that the whole thing just came out of left field, but Twoflower keeps trying to play the whole thing off, insisting that he "must have mentioned it." Rincewind accepts this on the pretext that they were probably running away from something at the time - a situation where he's not going to be listening to what anyone's saying.
• The Dresden Files: Book 3, Grave Peril, introduces Michael Carpenter, Knight of the Cross and Harry's long-time friend from at least two years before the books started. He has never been mentioned in any of the short stories, books, or flashbacks set before Grave Peril.
• The first time Skye is mentioned in the Evernight series is Afterlife, the fourth book, and yet Bianca recognises her, mentions that Raquel shared a class with her a few years back and was pally with her. In fairness, there are a lot of students at Evernight Academy that Bianca and Raquel are probably familiar with, without mentioning every single one, though it does stand out a bit due to it clearly indicating Skye is going to be an important character in this book.
• In Great Expectations, it isn't until Chapter 15 that we learn that Joe Gargery has had another apprentice all along; apparently Pip just never thought to mention Orlick before. (In reality, this was because the novel was originally published serially, meaning Charles Dickens couldn't go back to add the new character to earlier chapters.)
• Harry Potter:
  • Professor Silvanus Kettleburn is this trope by technicality. Care of Magical Creatures, his subject, is mentioned in Chamber of Secrets, but its teacher is not specified until Prisoner of Azkaban (when the class becomes relevant to the plot), at which point he has already retired.
  • In Order of the Phoenix, Luna Lovegood is introduced; she was in the year below the main characters in books 2-4 without being mentioned but now becomes a major character. Slightly justified as she is a Ravenclaw and thus would not be in the same dorms as the main characters.
  • In Half Blood Prince, Cormac McLaggen is introduced and tries out for Keeper against Ron. McLaggen provides an explanation for his absence from the Quidditch trials in the previous book: He was sick in the hospital wing at the time after eating doxy eggs on a bet, also providing his Establishing Character Moment. Romilda Vane is introduced in the same book; both characters are in the year below the main characters and have supposedly been in Ginny Weasley's class for four years without being mentioned in any of the books.
• The Heroes of Olympus:
  • The Roman Aspects were not mentioned at all in the original Quintet... however, The Lost Hero justifies this in that the Greek and Roman Aspects do not get along at all, hence the need for them to remain hidden from each other. In fact, a clever reader can point out that the only ones explaining the Roman aspects are, of course, Romans, and that the Romans felt this way about the Greeks. (Since Lupa's not one to tell!)
  • Related, Jason Grace. Thalia didn't mention having a little brother for several reasons, among them being that the events surrounding his disappearance were quite traumatic for her and that she thought him dead until this series began. Jason also happens to be a Backstory Invader to the class of Wilderness School students that Piper and Leo were part of, thanks to Hera transporting him onto that bus with amnesia and messing with the students' memories.
• Inheritance Cycle: Brisingr introduces Nasuada and Ajihad's culture. Not only had they never been previously mentioned (and none of Nasuada's point-of-view segments from the previous book so much as alluded to her culture), but the book tries to act as though they are well known throughout Algaesia and have been part of the Varden. Despite this contradicting what the first book said about nobody knowing where Ajihad came from.
• James Bond novel High Time to Kill introduces one Roland Marquis, a distinguished RAF member and Bond's rival since his studies in Eton. This is actually the first time that anyone from Bond's days of studying had been introduced.
• The Lion King comics and books are bad at this. Many characters, such as Tama, Tojo, and Malka, appear but are never referenced in other material ever again. Very often they're not given any reason for popping up and are just always presumed to be there. A particularly noticeable example is Mtoto, who is Simba's cousin according to a magazine. Sarabi had sisters once, but they were scrapped very early in development. In the final product Nala and Simba are the only two cubs in the Pride. Other examples include the cubs introduced in Nala's Dare, which apparently were Nala's friends during Scar's reign but are never even implied to exist in the film. In The Lion King Nala was the only cub in the pride after Simba left.
• The Nancy Drew series (all versions) frequently introduced characters (usually just for the duration of the current book) as relatives/old friends of Bess, George, Nancy's father, or Nancy herself, essentially explaining their absence by having them live far away.
• Invoked by October Daye when she has to introduce her fetch^note a magical doppelganger May to humans. The audience and fey characters know what she is (or at least understand what a fetch is), but Toby has to pretend that she's always had an identical twin sister who she just never mentioned.
• Halt's twin brother, introduced in book 8 of Ranger's Apprentice. Justified in that the brother lived in another country and Halt actively avoided telling people about his childhood, as shown in book 11.
  • Brotherband introduces two important concepts to Skandian society: the Andomal and the Maktig. Neither is mentioned in Ranger's Apprentice, despite Skandians being prominently featured.
• The opening chapter of Redshirts by John Scalzi plays with this from the New Guy's perspective. This week's Red Shirt thinks about the time his father saved the captain's life, and then realises that up until the captain mentioning it just now, there has been no reference to this happening the whole time he was on the ship.
• Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Stacy Cornwallis and Fay Willock were apparently present for the garuda incident in volume 1 but weren't seen. We are humorously informed at their introduction in volume 2 that they spent the whole time hiding while Oliver, Nanao, and Richard were fighting it.
  Fay: Seriously? You want in [on the Tournament Arc]? You were quaking in your boots like the rest of us when that garuda attacked.
  Stacy: F-Fay! You're mistaken! I was just watching really intently!
• Sandokan: Sambigliong, a Tiger of Mompracem that debuted in The Pirates of Malaysia and Sandokan's third in command since that novel, is mentioned as one of the then-unnamed pirates that ambushed lord Guillonk in The Tigers of Mompracem. This is particularly notable because there already was a named character, Juioko, known to have taken part to that ambush and survive the fall of Mompracem, but him and the other named pirates would not be mentioned anymore.
• In the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", Holmes casually mentions that he has a brother, living in London, and has simply never mentioned him before. Adaptations generally play up Watson's surprise at this, and make it part of Holmes's eccentricity.
• Peter David's Star Trek: New Frontier series had Commander Kat Mueller appear suddenly several novels in. She's introduced as the Executive Officer of the Excalibur and a former lover of Calhoun's, with her earlier on-scene absence described as being due to her taking the night shift.
  • One could say this was justified, as she was actually introduced as the Executive Officer of the Grissom in Calhoun's Captain's Table story, along with Romeo Takahashi, Mick Gold, and Doc Villers, the former two of which worked night shift on the Excalibur before it blew up, and all four work under Shelby (and eventually under Mueller) on the Trident after.
• From Star Wars Legends:
  • It plays with this in Legacy of the Force with Brisha Syo. We know she's Lumiya. We really do. Despite this, Mara assumes she's Luke and Lumiya's daughter. Since Mara and Luke have each other's memories from their Force bond, Lumiya barely kissed Luke, and that TIE crash that warranted extensive cybernetic replacement would most likely have led to a miscarriage, why Mara would even think that only raises even more questions. That said, Word of God says that even if they use a character from the comics, they are free to accept or reject anything that took place in them.
  • By contrast, it's played straight and lampshaded in Invincible. Tenel Ka has cousins? Okay, so Ta'a Chume secretly had more than one son, we'll give her the benefit of the doubt and accept that she managed to hide her pregnancy. And... Tenel Ka has cousins? But the fact that nobody knows about them is what makes them so useful. And, wait, Tenel Ka has cousins?
  • It's likely that Kevin J. Anderson left a number of Luke's original twelve students nameless and description-less in the Jedi Academy Trilogy for this very reason. At the time of the Legends continuity reboot in 2014, at least one was never positively identified.
  • Winter, Princess Leia's best friend/quasi adopted sister and hero of the Rebellion, is introduced this way in Heir to the Empire. Having a character who so easily could have had a place in the original trilogy, but didn't, lead many readers to mistrust her and think that she was Delta Source (back when it was assumed that Delta Source was a spy in the imperial palace, and not just a left-over surveillance network that the New Republic never found.)
• Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves: In this Jeeves and Wooster novel, Emerald Stoker is introduced as being Pauline Stoker's sister, when there was no mention whatsoever of her in the previous novel that featured the Stoker clan, Thank You, Jeeves. In fact, Pauline's father even says at one point he has only one daughter.
• An in-universe example, in There Is No Antimemetics Division, O5-8's assistant, Clay, is apparently some kind of antimemetic agent, or an agent working on behalf of an antimeme. O5-8 does not have an assistant, but this entity was inserted into his office, apparently first to get him to forget his class W mnestic medicine. It appears his further mission was to destroy the Antimemetics Division, but we will never know for sure, as he was killed soon after being discovered.
• In the Tortall Universe, the lead character of Song of the Lioness appears only three chapters in to The Immortals, and refers to Numair Salmalin as one of her best friends. He wasn't in Song of the Lioness at all. There's actually a gap of ten years between the two quartets (which is expected to be filled in The Numair Chronicles) but this isn't immediately clear without consulting a timeline.
• In the Twilight series, we hear briefly about the Volturi, mainly that they and Carlisle are on friendly terms, but that he left because he did not agree with their diet of humans. Edward speaks pretty well of them, when he tells Bella about them. In the next book and all books after, it's revealed that the Volturi are a highly corrupt organization, and the Cullens are all highly suspicious of them. This also leads to a case of Remember Those New Rules, since it's not until then that it's mentioned that there are any sort of laws or governing of vampires.
  • In New Moon, we find out that the teenagers of La Push had been turning into werewolves ever since the Cullens first settled down in Forks. This is not present in Twilight (when nothing is done to stop James, Victoria, and Laurent from killing people in Forks) or Midnight Sun (when nothing is done to stop Peter and Charlotte from killing people in Forks).
    • The James, Victoria, and Laurent example is only in the film version. In the book, they never kill any of the residents of Forks.
• Under Suspicion: It's established in The Sleeping Beauty Killer that Angela is head of marketing at the women's clothing company Ladyform and is vice president Charlotte Pierce's best friend, though she neither appeared or was mentioned in All Dressed in White (where Charlotte and her company were first introduced). This one is more justified than usual given that the previous novel was focused around people who could've potentially been involved in the disappearance of Charlotte's younger sister (namely, the wedding guests staying with her at a resort in Florida), so there would be little reason for Angela to be mentioned as she had no significant connection to the case.
• In the Warrior Cats book Moonrise, six cats were sent to deal with the mountain lion, Sharptooth. The Clan cats meet three of them: Talon, Bird, and Rock, who explain that the other three had been killed by Sharptooth. In the next book, the Clans return to the Tribe, and there's a fourth cat, Jag, listed as being one of the ones originally sent to fight Sharptooth, with no explanation as to why we didn't see him in the last book (though the characters do recognize him and say they'd met him before).
• The Wheel of Time: Cadsuane is never mentioned until she appears in the sixth book, even though she is Famed In-Story. To be fair, the Aes Sedai are known for being extremely secretive even among their own members, and Cadsuane has a history of embarrassing many sisters who would as soon not talk about her unless needed.
• In the Wolf Hall series, Meg Douglas, and to a lesser extent her flame Tom Truth. Meg is an odd example; as a Princess of Scotland, Henry VII's niece, and being very high up in the English line of succession at a time when Henry had few potential heirs, she probably should have been at least mentioned much earlier, but wasn't. She only appears in the final book, which makes her out to be an important lady at court and to have been thoroughly involved in Anne Boleyn's circle while participating in an illicit affair of her own, entirely offscreen. The book she appears in goes out of its way to explain why the series' resident gossips Jane Rochford and Mary Shelton never mentioned Meg earlier by having them answer that everyone was more concerned about Anne's affairs at the time than Meg's.

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