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Cryptic Background Reference
"Part of the attraction of
is, I think, due to the glimpses of a large history in the background: an attraction like that of viewing far off an unvisited island, or seeing the towers of a distant city gleaming in a sunlit mist. To go there is to destroy the magic, unless new unattainable vistas are again revealed."
One way of building background is to have the characters refer to things without explaining exactly what those things are. The slight confusion caused is balanced by the sense given of a larger world, outside the plot. If a story is extended to a long enough series (especially when there's a ), most of these cryptic references are explained and/or used as , but often one or two will never appear in story. What such references really mean is a favorite subject for fan-clubs. The rise of the web has reduced the incidence of such things (creators get asked), though not totally eliminated them.
Compare to the closely-related , , ,
are commonly played as sub-tropes of this, as is . See
for organizations with this treatment more referred to than seen. If the reference in question is actually explained later on, it becomes , , or . If not, it becomes a . Interestingly, if you start following a long-running series from the middle (rather than ), every
in it effectively becomes a Cryptic Background Reference for you, so it's all just a matter of perspective, really.
&&&&open/close all folders&
&&&&Anime & Manga&
Considering
is a series that prides itself in its sheer vagueness, it isn't a big surprise that this trope shows up at least once a chapter. Technology and factions are seen, mentioned and interacted with often, but in most cases, never fully explained. This adds to the already frighteningly vast feel of the ', and leaves plenty of room for .
does this all the time, sometimes without even directly saying anything. It oftentimes does this with the main plot and character traits — e.g.
is a "data dog", something apparently important and rare which is only vaguely explained, even in the episode where it's mentioned. This is subtly
— Jet angrily asks Spike why he's running off to kill a man from his past. Spike pointedly (even cynically) asks him how he lost his arm, causing Jet to clam up. The circumstances behind Spike's pursuit of the man and Jet's lost arm are eventually revealed.
This anime features the characters spouting a lot of
phrases that won't mean anything until a good twenty episodes later. It gets pretty confusing when half of the spoken terms have no meaning to the viewer.
Its sequel,
is slightly better. There are a lot of references to events in the past, and several hints that there is something off about the . They also managed to cut the introduction to meaning rate by about 50%, meaning that almost every truly cryptic and bizarre thing has been given some measure of explanation or meaning within 10 episodes, as opposed to the 20 mentioned above. Yes, if you just started watching, that means that the Alternate Universe thing will get explained very soon.
A visual one: in , look closely at the center. Zazie Rainyday ◊ 250+ chapters later, this is still unexplained, as is everything regarding Zazie. It finally appears in the story proper in .
The Magic World is filled to the brim with this type of stuff, with people referring to all sorts of races, animals, places, and phenomena that don't happen here.
A very subtle one. When Mami explains why Witches are bad, she mentioned them luring people to suicide and causing fights to break out in certain places. The second type of bad influence is never seen in the anime.
It's also hinted that she knew
Kyoko, and Kyoko's past — but this is actually confirmed in .
Several are found in . The official website describes three witches who never appeared in the anime, because only their familiars did. We don't even know what they look like. Then we have the revelation that
Walpurgisnacht is
It's real name is .
Of course, Mami also mentions that Witches cause "natural disasters" in addition to the suicides. And
about Walpurgis is that it's actually a Witch that
grew stronger by
with other witches.
In , there are very occasional references to the fact that some great catastrophe has happened and Japan, with the aid of the Sybil system, is one of the few relatively normal nations left.
has a hierarchy of gods and demons distributed over four universes. Only some of these deities are described, others are named or merely implied. Nothing is known about the demons Chaotic Blue and Death Fog, for instance, and less than that about their opponents. Fanfic authors have, naturally, expended much effort to fill the gaps.
is rife with this trope. Most of the back story can be divided into two categories. There's the information that was lost forever during the , which isn't explained since none of the characters are aware of it. And then there are the things that all of them know about, which isn't explained since the characters have no reason to exposit out loud about it when speaking to each other.
story of a
named Alpha running a small cafe . Numerous mysteries are touched upon but absolutely none are explained fully, either because they have nothing to do with the story as previously outlined, or the characters are just as much in the dark as the readers.
&&&&Comic Books&
uses this trope a lot, especially in the earlier volumes when the universe wasn't so fleshed out. There are constant references to heroes, villains, and incidents that the readers have not seen yet - and sometimes never see, since the story is more about how people think and live in a superhero world than about the actual exploits of the heroes. The author, , uses this trope a lot in his work - the same treatment is given to his magic-replaced-technology
story , among others.
used to do this, but over the years, people
have started to fill in most of the gaps. Whether they should have bothered or not .
does this constantly to fill in the gaps between the novels that the characters first appeared in and the actual LoEG comics themselves. To the point where a reference guide for all of the bits in the first collected comic was three times the thickness of the comic itself. One panel could have two pages worth of 'This is the X from Y', especially in their museum base.
This pops up in another work by , . There are several references to adversaries and events from Promethea's past that are never seen or elaborated upon. The Shadow Queen however is probably the most notable since she is referred to several times without any details about her nature or ambitions revealed to the audience.
comic showed a Geonosian hive on the ice world Zaadja where several Mandalorian corpses were embedded into the walls. At the time of writing both races had an alliance with the Confederacy which would rule out any logical reason.
Writer Tristan Huw Jones would pepper his
stories with these, particularly when it came to characters.
James Robert's Transformers stories (, ...) tend to mention things, events, and places that are often very slowly elaborated upon or explained over time, if at all.
: During issue 6, the Avengers of the future mention the "Eternity Wars", which had some part to play in Hulking becoming what they proclaim "King of Space", before adding that it's apparently some time away. Then Collapsar hurriedly asks Sunspot to forget he ever heard anything.
The follow-up series
mentions it again, with the future Captain America saying only that it was "worse" than Zero Day, when pretty much every major hero died at Thanos's hands.
Scrooge McDuck made many such references in comics by , which were intended as pure throwaway references to give the impression that Scrooge has lived a long, exciting life as an adventurer and businessman. Many years later,
took many of Barks's offhand references and used them as the basis of .
&&&&Fan Works&
has the Legion of Doom enter another universe. Cryptic references are given constantly to this world's past and how it got to be that way, but nothing is outright stated, leaving the reader's imagination to connect the dots. The characters are just as baffled as the reader.
fanfic , one of
Captain June Harper's
is based on a "Taska Venkman" series of spy movies.
is loaded with these, both overt and subtle. Examples include:
The Idris' attic is filled with artifacts that don't quite belong there, notably a stack of books in several different languages.
The Deep Gap. What created it?
All the crumbling towns and cities of Baravada. Shag and Varx toss off a line about how the Dalns gods are somehow responsible for them, but don't elaborate.
The Tayhil invasion. What exactly happened during that?
The Wizards' University, where Grunnel once taught and where Brox is currently doing research.
has some, mostly used to expand the world. For example:
Tampere Empire is mentioned a few times as the biggest country in the region and a neighbor to both Corona and Arendelle.
There exists Far East. Tampere focuses on politics there and Southern Isles have ambassador there, but nothing else is ever said.
Southernmost Lands, an apparent stand-in for America of Era of Discoveries, with
names and kangaroos, where everyone can allegedly start a new life.
Non-geographical examples include the
that caused Hauser to be
and hate Ferdinand, as well as some event in the past that caused Southern Isles to secede from Confederacy.
In , no one precisely knows where the Haunted Mansion itself came from, nor what happened to .
&&&&Films — Live-Action&
is littered with allusions to characters we never meet and adventures we never hear anything else about,
from the writers' original plans for a multi-media franchise, . A lot of the ones in the film , but it's been out of print for years and raises even more of its own, so...
: "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the . All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. ... Time to die."
Jack Sparrow makes several non sequitur references to his past exploits (e.g., "And then they made me their chief.", "Clearly you've never been to Singapore.") that enrich his character. The sequels try to tie the movies together by creating plot points out of them.
When we actually do get to Singapore we never find out exactly what Jack did to offend Sao Feng, so this trope appears again.
Also, Elizabeth's speech on Black Sam's Spit: "But you're Captain Jack Sparrow. You vanished from under the eyes of seven agents of the East India Company. You sacked Nassau port without firing a shot. Are you the pirate I've read about or not?"
asks 's former spy "Don't I recognize you?" He replies "Vienna" and shoots him. It's not relevant to the plot at all.
Upon its original release,
was a prime example of this, full of name-drops that have nothing to do with the plot but which combine to make the fictional world feel boundless and lived-in. References to the Imperial Senate, the Old Republic, "big Corellian ships" and the spice mines of Kessel are a few examples. Scenes that were cut in the original release, such as Han's confrontation with Jabba the Hutt, also make things like Greedo's confronting Han over something he did to wrong Jabba seem bigger. Every single throwaway line has been since filled in to ridiculous levels of detail by either the
Ironically the Expanded Universe has never introduced any ship to match Han's line about the "Imperial starcruisers" that are "big Corellian ships."
Lando: She's as safe now as she's ever likely to be. Don't worry about that. Han: You know, that's almost exactly the same thing you said back on Boordii. That botched dolfrima run — remember? You said, 'It' don't worry about it.' Lando: Yes, but this time I mean it.
More references include the Clone Wars, "that bounty hunter we ran into on Ord Mantell...," the Kessel Run, "many Bothans died...," Han and Lando's history, etc.
Will and Ned from
often talked about their old gang.
makes a few references "what happened in Baltimore," some apparently shameful event in the OBGYN's past that has left him with limited opportunities.
: The line "You flew the Gullfire over Leningrad, didn't you?" hints at Snake's past and a possible war with the Soviet Union. Also the fact that everyone thought he was dead for some reason.
is actually pretty good at world-building with background references and a surprisingly interesting universe, one reference in particular feels cryptic. Caine, the part-wolf part-human super soldier, is said to have ripped the throat out of an Entitled, yet he doesn't remember the incident taking place and apparently was informed of its occurrence by his mentor, Stinger. The only indication that it actually happened is that he was court-martialed for the crime, and is no longer a skyjacker. Who the Entitled was, the reasons for it occurring, and why Caine is said to have done it in a fit of rage when we never see him acting out of rage at any point in the movie, is never expanded upon.
The term "Double D-anniversary" in . Christy and Annie are repeatedly referring to this event without giving an explanation until towards the end when we flash back to the scene where this term was coined:
Christy: Today is kind of a D-Day. "D" for decision, I guess. About divorce. Annie: That'd be two D's, wouldn't it? Christy: I stand corrected.
In , neither Striker nor any of his fellow crewmates will ever forget that day over Macho Grande.
Rollie from
regularly drops names of movies he'd worked on when he or Andy re-purpose equipment from those films to foil the opposition (e.g. "smoke pots from Hellraisers").
&&&&Literature&
was a master of , working on his Middle-Earth world from about
until his death.
is full of lovingly crafted and referred-to details, many of which are left unexplained, whose stories first got public with the posthumous publications of the earlier stories.
One thing Tolkien knew from his studies as a linguist and English teacher is that some of the old myths recreate the
effect entirely by accident, when the relevant poems or stories are lost — the medieval Finns probably had an explanation of what a
(from ) is, for example, but it didn't survive the Middle Ages.
Then there are some things which never got elaborated on, even posthumously, like in
when Bilbo makes reference to "the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert." Nothing remotely similar is ever even spoken of again.
Half of fun of reading Tolkien is this. Go read
and go back and read . Now revel in all the references most people didn't get the first time around. That part of the song Aragorn sings in The Fellowship of the Ring about Beren and L&thien? Now you know the whole story. Bilbo's song about E&rendil that Aragorn seemed to find so cheeky to sing in Rivendell? It was about Elrond's father (and mother) who he hasn't seen in five thousand years and probably dredged up some bad memories about the ransacking of his home when he was a child by the sons of F&anor. The list goes on.
The Second Prophecy of Mandos, which describes what the end of the world will be like, is referenced (though not by name) in virtually all of the canonical stories of Middle-earth. However, the prophecy itself does not appear in canon — only in Tolkien's earlier drafts for The Silmarillion.
is a prime example. His stories make repeated, throwaway references to fictional books and locales, but there's little evidence that the man himself had any unified vision in mind. His pals also did the same, throwing out cryptic
to Lovecraft and each other's works. Enticed, the readers wanted more, and piecing together such references is part of the fun of the .
continually in the series in the form of Textual Sieves. Roughly every other time they're mentioned, someone asks what they do, and are told that no one knows, since they're so sparsely described. Thursday asks , and in turn
asks Thursday how textual sieves work and the given explanation is "."
There's plenty of other examples, such as the "Boojumorial" of Jurisfiction agents lost in action ("Boojumed", or deleted), the views across the wilderness to other Great Libraries for other languages, the
that is the Well of Lost Plots, previous disasters in the BookWorld (apparently,
used be "a gentle comedy of manners", but increasingly bad behaviour by the characters turned it into the "the daftest, bloodiest play in all of "), and items in Thursday's TravelBook that haven't yet turned out to be , such as String TM. There's even more examples in the Outworld, which to Thursday is . Genetic engineering means they've resurrected the woolly mammoth, but they don' Britain was invaded by the Nazis during
and comedy musician George "When I'm Cleaning Windows" Formby led the Resistance, later becoming President-For-L The People's Republic of W riots
the weirder parts of SpecOps, and so on.
In the Mad Tea-Party scene from ,
proposes the riddle, "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?" Some time passes before Alice, the Hatter and the March Hare all admit that they can't find the answer. This did nothing to stop readers from persistently trying to find answers such as " wrote on both." Although Carroll himself eventually came up with the answer "Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very and it is
put with the wrong end in front!" Or "They both have inky quills"
has vampire kingdoms, which are alluded to a few times, and the islands, which are somewhere in Beloria, but we don't even learn in what direction.
Stephen Brust's
books use this in massive amounts.
are supposed to be historical fiction novels within the universe, so they assume that the reader is a Dragaeran who doesn't need additional explanations. Vlad sometimes seems to make the same assumption, but other times he explains common aspects of the world for the reader's benefit. Vlad will also make vague references to his various other misadventures outside of the scope of the current story without going into detail. Sometimes he says he doesn't want to digress, and other times he's simply cryptic. Some of these do get explained in future novels. Brust intentionally includes them as possible story hooks for future novels without planning on where they'll go.
books sometimes play this straight and sometimes use it to disguise a .
stories, Watson is famous for this, often referring to other cases, such as the one involving "the giant rat of Sumatra, for which the world is not yet prepared". Some of these became stories in their own right (though usually not from Doyle's pen), but most remain unexplained.
Used masterfully well in Ulysses Silva's novel Solstice. There is exactly one incident where things are properly explained by the main character (even then, it's mostly clarification on things you've picked up). Everything else is left for the reader to figure out. And quite often, everything you thought you'd figured out turns out to be completely wrong, leading to many an
until the very end.
Much like the Sherlock Holmes example, the
series by Rex Stout begins on terms of false familiarity, and vaguely references past cases that are never fully explained.
is full of this. Particularly the 's motivation for
sinking Atlantis. All we get is him shouting "THEY DESERVED IT!" 's work has tons of this, but Neverwhere and
are particularly big examples.
In 's , many vague allusions are made to the further adventures of secondary characters, always accompanied by the phrase, "But that is another story, and will be told another time." Needless to say, said stories have never been told.
Actually plot-significant, and gives the book its title. In the ending,
Bastian is told he can't leave until every storyline he started up is finished. But given the rate uncompleted plots have been created (several story hooks get created for every one he finishes) he'd never be done. Atreyu saves him by taking on the task on his behalf. The movies leave this out, resulting in an .
is littered with these, with allusions to far-off planets and some of their inhabitants that are never explored in-depth. For instance, Maximegalon is apparently a planet with a very rich academic history, although it' neither is Blagulon Kappa, a world mentioned off-handedly several times but about which even less is explicitly stated. On the character side of things, Oolon Colluphid is apparently a very prestigious writer and an acquaintance of Zaphod Beeblebrox's (as of ), and some of his books have been named, but he's never personally encountered. The same goes for Eccentrica Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon VI, and ex-president Yooden Vranx, who would have been part of the first story arc, but
wound up not going there. What's really interesting is that the many of the stars and systems he mentions are real, like Sirius. This amuses people with arbitrary knowledge of stars.
There's also a bunch of almost-correct ones. There is no real-life planet called Ursa Minor Beta, but there is a star called Beta Ursae Minoris.
Used in the
books by , and not overused, either. He's mentioned in interviews that he's not really into world-building — he just makes everything up as he goes along.
Simon R Green often uses this trope in the
Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar cycle, there is a place called Roldem in the east of Midkemia. It is mentioned in a few of the books, and included in every map of the world, however over the course of more than 20 books, it is not visited at all. In fact, most of the information on Roldem comes from a single e-mail written in 1998.
stories, there are several mentions of a group called "The Children of the Sun" who were, it seems, wiped out by the Alerans relatively recently (historically speaking) and, as a last action, did something, somewhere, for some reason and now there's the Feverthorn Jungle in the middle of the continent, that no one can enter for reasons which are unexplained. Though we get a rough idea of where it is (middle southeast of the continent according to the map in First Lord's Fury) what makes the jungle impenetrable (even to the ) is unexplained. The Alerans idly speculate that if they could figure out what the Children did, they might be able to turn it against the Vord.
Also , as Butcher explained it on the website. They're another sentient race (of plant-people, with Woodcrafting-like powers), who are now all dead, wiped out by the Roman legions shortly after they arrived on Alera (and hence ). Of all the sentient races that have appeared on Alera, only the toughest survive the competition.
Part of the charm of the early books of
is that the main character is a member of a race with ten thousand years of history, but our glimpses of this history is as through a glass darkly because the main character already knows her history and doesn't feel the need to monologue about it. The later books have filled in many of the references, but far from all of them.
The story of Princess Nell in Neal Stephenson's
starts out like this, and Nell and the Primer spend the next decade or so expanding the references.
has stated that not all locations on the map of
will be visited in the story. Consider the fact that no viewpoint character has yet visited (during the story, that is) the Lannisters' home Casterly Rock, or the Basilisk Isles that show up on the map of (part of) the Eastern Continent.
The series is full
to various events (the tragedy at Summerhall, the Tower of Joy, "The Rains of Castamere," the Blackfyre rebellion, the Ninepenny Kings, the Doom of Valyria, etc). As the series moves on, some of them have been at least partially explained.
Alien characters in
often allude to various other species or situations that have nothing to do with the plot:
For example, early books would sometimes list random species the Yeerks had supposedly enslaved, though practically none of them are seen except for Hork-Bajir, Taxxons and Gedds.
There's also a whole subplot happening off-scene with a planet called Anati: apparently the Yeerks knew very little about it (including whether or not it was inhabited) and sent Visser One to conquer it, but she wound up failing for some unknown reason.
"The Five", the mysterious race responsible for hunting the Venber to extinction. Ax doesn't know where they came from or why they called themselves that, but they have since also vanished, possibly due to the Andalites of old giving them a taste of their own medicine.
At the end of book 41, the
Jake was experiencing turns out to be
a psychological test conducted by an unknown being, for no obvious reason but curiosity. We never find out who was running it.
Crayak, the closest thing the series has to Satan, was evicted from his galaxy of origin by an even more powerful being.
Following the tradition of the films, the
make references of their own, some of them mentioned or expanded on by others, some of them never mentioned again. It gets downright fractal at times. Try hitting
before finding an article with one line of description and one or two appearances.
Often used in , with throwaway references to things like the politics of the Guild of Engravers (although that one eventually became ), or the various notes on Sam Vimes's desk that he's too busy with the main story to deal with, creating the feel that Ankh-Morpork keeps running even when there isn't a story happening.
In the beginning of , the third-person narrator often makes references to historical events and figures, such as the fall of Gilead and John Farson, as well as important characters in
. Many of these are clarified later in the series, further expanding the previously sparse world.
has lots of these, references made by characters to things that happened in their pasts, references to the history of the world etc. Given that only the first book of a ten book series has been released, and that
loves to collect
it's highly likely that a lot of them are just waiting to go off.
novels are full of references to epic historical events and heroes, and the landscape is littered with ruins and relics of bygone ages. Some of it gets expanded on and turns out to be important to the backstory, but a lot is just hinted at to give the impression that the setting is old and didn't just sit there doing nothing until the main characters arrived.
Even happens in-universe, with Birgitte and
Mat (after he starts gaining access to the memories of his past life). Being ancient characters, they have witnessed events that happened THOUSANDS of years prior and have been losts to the mists of time, so nobody around them has any idea what they're talking about when they start spouting off references.
And because time in the setting is cyclical, many of the references are in fact to actual historical events in our time, but with the details garbled by the passage of the ages. Many of the oldest songs and stories will actually be surprisingly familiar to readers.
novels have a handy store of ancient history at which to hint. Some characters (Vanyel, Lavan Firestorm) have had their own books, but she claims "Windrider" and "Sun and Shadow" likely will not, since they work better as distant legends.
contain a fair amount of them, such as the reasons for some wizards not showing up to a White Council meeting in Chicago including "He got real married", "Living under a polar ice cap", and "Pyramid Sitting".
In a case that ultimately e in the first book Harry mentions that Santa Claus is real, and implies he's . Fast forward fourteen books, and we finally meet him in Cold Days, and get a good idea of why Harry would have been scared of him in the first book.
Sandy Mitchell's
books have loads, some of which get stories (a reference to hunting Tyranids on a hulk, now released as The Emperor's Finest), others are not (yet) fleshed out (his encounter with a Dark Eldar wytch, and time spent on a Tau world, for instance).
Pipe Down!, Princess Toadstool mentions that in the past (around the time of her ancestors) there were things far worse and more powerful than the Koopa Kingdom, but no elaboration is offered as to what she means by that.
The Mechwarrior Dark Age novels (based on the
game world) made references to events that had occurred in the 65-year
since the last published BattleTech novel. The result was a lot of terms used in general discussion that had no explanation - The Jihad, the Ruins of Gabriel, Apollyon, the Master and so forth. Since then, new BattleTech fiction has begun to explain some of this.
Loads. The names of
are dropped without context, only to be explained a dozen chapters later. Since there's lots of
and , the audience has some clues to figure out what the names refer to before they appear on screen.
The Dagonites get referenced every few chapters for hundreds of chapters, with no explanation. Even when Dagonite characters show up on screen, the other characters just note that they don't look as weird as they expected, and move on.
Space colonies are referenced as well. A refugee from a minor mutiny on the Chinese Shaohao station crash-lands at one point, and later it's mentioned that the Soviet Tsiolkovsky Station is the communications hub for the colonies. Ceres gets a few mentions (it's implied to be a factory colony), and someone says that a character is from "Lemuria, on Mars."
The fall of Eden is mentioned more than once as an important part of the city's past, but no context is given.
series, D. M. Cornish not only strives to make the Half-Continent feel lived in with side comments and throwaway lines, but he has so many
who appear and reappear within Rossamund's narrative that it leaves readers thirsty for all the potential other stories that could be told. There is, after all, a reason why the glossaries in the back of the books can be a third of the physical book.
Used fairly frequently in Herbie Brennan's . Since most of the series is set in a fantasy realm with only two non-native characters present, references to simbala parlours, power outrages, border Redcaps, or The Reindeer King of Crippenmas are pretty commonplace. Some of these are given explanations in the glossaries, and a few end up connecting to the plots of later books, but many are left entirely unexplained.
provides no detail on an event that killed about 4 billion people: "Just about the time the Lunar colony was being established, Earth went through the Great Crisis. I don't have to tell you about that."
novel , some of the monsters mentioned in the text are explained in Father Mallern's . Most are not. Dire cattle, for example, and referenced a few times, but never seen, and in the end all we know is that the only similarity they have with normal cattle is that they still have four legs.
Hannu Rajaniemi's
features many references to cataclysmic events that shaped the world of the novel, but remain a mystery to the reader, and sometimes even to the characters due to lost historical records and memory manipulation. These include the Collapse that caused most people to abandon Earth, the Cry of Wrath, the Spike which somehow destroyed Jupiter, and the Protocol War. Some get elaborated in the later books and even become major plot points, while others remain a mystery.
C.S. Lewis's
has a few of these. For instance, in , the children meet a magician, who is later revealed to be personified star who was sent to earth as a punishment. On being asked what possible crime a star could commit, they are simply told: "it is not for you, a Son of Adam, to know what faults a star can commit." The reference gets even more cryptic when Eustace comments that in their world stars are balls of flaming gas and is told that even in our world, that is not what stars are, but only what they are made of.
has Mr. Willy Wonka noting that Loompaland, the homeland of the Oompa-Loompas — and a country none of the other characters have heard of — is a
full of "hornswogglers and snozzwangers and those terrible wicked whangdoodles" without explaining what exactly those beasts are (besides very hungry). This isn't surprising, as Mr. Wonka himself has a never-explained
and is . (For one thing, between the original novel and its sequel, he's apparently managed to travel the world without being recognized for years, and has knowledge of other planets and alien races. Also, the
plays this concept for laughs with throwaway lines that reveal that he used to go to raves.)
Two examples from :
the Tryadine Effect case which was solved by Veckert before the events told in Chapter 1 - La Notte che Cammina and resulted in the opening of the dome of St. Patrick SHIELD is never explained in details —
the bombardment of Moscow mentioned by Egon Kramers in Sabbie.
Gary Seven is references events and races in
when Roberta asks him to justify whatever their mission is - some of which the audience has heard of, some of which were just made up.
when Roberta complains that she's never heard of these events or races and can hardly check up on them.
is in love with this trope, with casual mentions of numerous events during the Zombie War that never gets explained in-depth.
Literature/Worm has many cryptic references, some of which receive later explanations or story arcs. The Sleeper is the most prominent example that remains cryptic, an S-class threat whose presence causes an entire dimension to be written off for reasons that are so obvious to everyone that the reader gets no explanation.
"": The events surrounding Lake Havasu City are referred to in-story, but beyond involving water and possibly the destruction of a water plant, it's not clear what they were.
&&&&Live-Action TV&
: Events surrounding Lyanna's abduction and her eventual death remained a mystery until late in the series. Some of the events transformed into foreshadowing after the 6th season finale revealed
she died giving birth to Rhaegar's son, whom her brother adopted and renamed Jon Snow. In-universe, the abduction remains a cryptic reference even after the audience (and
Bran and Sam) get a complete explanation in season 7.
In , one of the four great races is the Furlings, who are never shown in 10 years of episodes (though a parody in episode 200 shows them as small furry creatures, looking somewhat like Ewoks). The non-appearance of the Furlings has become something of a , since the parody starts with surprise to even meet them, and ends with the Furling homeworld being destroyed.
In addition to the character
seen in flashbacks,
has included a number of throwaway references that have captured fan imaginations, including Sawyer's "Tampa job" and Sayid's Basra incident.
In , all bets are off. The Doctor will routinely spout off about unexplained spatial phenomena, utterly bizarre alien cultures and references to the
and too many other things to even think about listing. These are often expanded on in books or audio dramas, and occasionally later in the show itself.
Stories with the Third Doctor (and occasionally others) often make mention of an unnamed "monk" or "hermit" the Doctor knew long ago. The audience finally met the monk in the Third Doctor's final story. Whether the "hermit" was the same person has been the subject of much debate among fans.
It's virtually guaranteed that whenever the Doctor meets the Master, they will talk about their childhood and various parts of their own backstories and identities, which of course will never be explained because of how important the mystery behind them (as well as the Time Lords and Gallifrey as a whole) is to both characters.
Characters other than the Doctor are known to do this, too. For example, Captain Jack Harkness of
fame. , but he does mention actual bizarre past experiences. Random side-characters can do this too, usually to the Doctor or one of his companions, with the assumption that they're from the same period/place, and know what they mean.
We know about Torchwood 1 (from the
episodes "Army of Ghosts" and "Doomsday") and Torchwood 3 (from ). But the mysterious disappearance of Torchwood 4, and why Torchwood 2 is one guy, called Archie, above a bank in Glasgow, ("A very strange man") will probably never be revealed.
Unintentionally done in the TV series adaptation of , where things
are referenced, but are never explained in the series. It is possible they would have been, had the show not been canceled after a season.
: There was much speculation as to the origins of the goat in Ted's apartment, which is mentioned in season three but abruptly dismissed with "oh wait, that was on my thirty-FIRST birthday". Fans had a whole season to wonder, but the actual explanation was, perhaps inevitably, a bit of a letdown.
The title itself refers to How Ted Met the Mother of His Children.
It took until the end of season 8 before we saw her face.
The constantly expanding
universe is replete with this one and usually two or three are generated per episode.
A common theme in
but is never elaborated upon or referenced again.
The other most common thing are events that occurred in the fictional gaps of time between the various eras (Approximately 100 years elapsed between
and , 15ish years for TOS and
( being close-ish to TOS' present), and 80ish for
and . Significant things happened during those periods that are frequently referred to, but almost never shown on screen ("What happened to the Enterprise-B?" and the Earth-Romulan War being some of the big ones.) The
naturally latches onto these things like crazy.
episode "The Omega Directive" it's mentioned that the titular directive was established after an accident with the Omega Particles happened to Federation scientists in 2269. The fact that 2269 is in the middle of Kirk's five year mission, and this neither references an episode of the original series, nor mentions any involvement from the Enterprise (but doesn't discount it) makes it all the more cryptic.
this trope in regards to a specific alien race. Since TNG, there has been mention of an alien race called the Breen, though all that was known about them is that their homeworld is very cold. They finally show up in DS9, but in full body environmental suits that completely disguises their appearance, and nothing at all about their society is revealed. A throwaway line in DS9 suggests that they are extremely secretive by nature, so that not even the people in the shows know much about them.
referred in a couple of episodes ("The Adversary" and "Home Front") to a race called the Tzenkethi. All we learned was that their leader was called the Autarch, and that they'd previously fought a war with the Federation during which Ben Sisko served as first officer of the USS Okinawa under then-Captain Leyton. The EU used this as a jumping-off point for several novels, including making them a major player in the
following the Dominion War.
has several of these, such as the named cons that we never see the team run, like the "London Spank," the "Genevan Paso Doble" and the "Apple Pie," which is a "Cherry Pie" but with lifeguards. Also, there's what Nate did at the Russian border.
says that he may have technically hijacked a train, but that hasn't been mentioned on the show and likely never will be.
We've also seen the team coming back from jobs - one in Mexico where
picked up a lot of pinatas, and one in the Caribbean that went wrong in several different ways - without hearing much about what those jobs actually were.
subverted this trope quite often, given that it was all plotted out in advance. For instance, the fates of all the previous Babylon stations seemed to be a case of simple world-building, to stress how dangerous the universe was. But then we learned what happened to them: Three destroyed, one vanished. Then the vanished one shows up again, having been . Then it gets even deeper, when it's revealed that
in the first season, was in fact that Minbari prophet Valen, after he'd traveled back in time to provide the Minbari with the space station they desperately needed to win a war, which also helps to explain the random weirdness of Delenn becoming half-human. Other factors, like the unstable politics of Mars, also come up again in later seasons to be fleshed out. Other things, however, were left to the imagination. Such as what it was about Vree eating habits that disgusted G'Kar so much that he considered sitting next to them to be an insult to his entire government.
occasionally references the Ancient Kings and the High Priestesses, who were apparently embroiled in some sort of war for supremacy before Uther came to power.
did this sometimes. For example in "The Prom", Wesley mentioned the "Machash Wars".
does this a lot by mentioning various ops the main characters have done before the start of the series.
shows the city of Baltimore had its own mythology in its criminal underworld.
&&&&Music&
The song "Red Barchetta," from the
album Moving Pictures, takes place in an unspecified
future and relies heavily on this trope to paint an impression of the setting in the song's limited timeframe. An example:
My uncle has a country place that no one knows about
He says it used to be a farm before the Motor Law
And on Sundays I elude the Eyes and hop a turbine freight
To far outside the Wire, where my white-haired uncle waits.
that inspired the lyrics is a bit more descriptive of the setting, but still has examples.
made up the lyrics to "In the Air Tonight" while recording, admitting that they have no specific meaning but their ominous tone was inspired by his undergoing a bitter divorce from his first wife. Attempts by people to read into the lyrics have spawned , including the more infamous one that , .
&&&&Tabletop Games&
uses this a lot in their . Many of the early ones were given explanations later, but not all - for example, we still don't know whose uncle
is supposed to be.
. Even if you manage to read through every single supplement and piece together as much as you can, there are still a lot of holes. But, since the game's major theme is a world of mystical insanity seething just below the facade of normalcy, it's generally agreed that it just wouldn't make sense if everything made sense.
The current incarnation of the Necrons in
was inspired largely by a throwaway line by Rick Priestley about "the quiescent perils of the C'tan" which "lay beyond the Gates of Varl". References were quietly worked into the game over the years in the form of the C'tan phase sword and phase knife, until the release of the first Necron codex where the C'tan were finally revealed as the "gods" of the Necrons, .
There are also the two "missing" Space Marine Primarchs and their Legions. Every mention of the twenty Primarchs lists numbers II and XI as "All records deleted", and EU works have consistently refused to give any detail about who they were or what happened to them.
series of novels and audiobooks have touched on the subject obliquely, ranging from intimations of an accident at the gestation stage, to something so shameful and terrible that the Imperium refuses to acknowledge them, even when -,
are still listed in the records (admittedly, usually with the note "Explode planet on rumour of presence", but still). The exact details have never been revealed and are unlikely to be either, this is lampshaded by characters telling each other not to even think about discussing the details.
The closest we get is a throw-away line saying that the
had previously been ordered to attack a Space Marine Legion.
Now that the game numbers something like 50 books, there's very little in
that was mentioned in the first book that hasn't gotten a description by now. One of the biggest examples was the Republicans, which was an off-hand mention in the first book about a technological society living in the ruins of Washington, D.C. It was the subject of several unofficial
(called Netbooks) until they were finally described in the Expanded Edition of the original Sourcebook. There are still a few things here and there that have gotten mentioned but still not shown. The most notorious is the permanently-open Rift in Calgary, Alberta, and the monster kingdom that's developed there, as well as others like the
of France.
: Rose Klein (AKA Mama Bear) gets one in Tomorrow?s Starlight. It’s never explained what the ?Albuquerque Incident? was, but it was apparently enough to get her a maximum threat rating from The Shop.
&&&&Video Games&
This happens once a game in the
games: random
come into the scene and reference something that would make sense as part of a longer plot but which you don't know about. ("I would gladly fight to the death to follow the last orders of Master Shinrai!" ...Master who?) How much of this is the result of this actually being a spin-off series of a larger plot
isn't immediately obvious to English-speaking players.
contained the mysterious line "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance," prompting much debate on just who "Sheng Long" was and . It was eventually explained that the name actually just referred to , not another person. But still...
Then there's Bison/Vega crowing about how "The Ancient One" couldn't face him. And Fei Long dedicating his art to "the master and his son" (actually a reference to Bruce Lee, ). And those three college students who inspired Sakura to take up fighting.
anything at all involving Gill. That's not even touching on the whole sordid tale of how Charlie Nash's death happened, or for that matter, where it happened, which , it qualifies as a .
Undoubtedly the biggest issue involving said Sheng Long, the canon ending to the first tournament. Other than the basic fact of Ryu hitting Sagat really, really hard, we're never going to know for sure what actually happened. The most likely scenario, in fact, involves Ryu connecting with Sagat's chin (the usual one hit KO location for MMA); any blow to the chest forceful enough to put away a brawny heavyweight would've left a much larger scar than what Sagat's currently sporting.
enjoys this quite a bit. The meaning of the phrase that started the series, "You are the one who will open the door to light" has still not been fully explained. In the first game, Sora closes the Door to D in the second, he finds Kairi's letter, which does open a path back home, but as he's not the one opening it technically, it's unknown just what the phrase means.
lives on this trope - Throwaway references became major plot elements in later games - such as Lemon's last name, and referring to a 'Beowulf' who piloted a 'Gespenst Mk. III' (Alt Eisen) - obscure references to the previous game, where the protagonist's theme called was 'Steel Beowulf' and his unit was revealed to have been a modified Gespenst Mk. I considered for mass production. And many, many more.
treats all the characters as already established, and new characters are often brought in with the assumption that they've had encounters with main character Marina in the past.
. There are references to shared histories between characters, and to a war ten years ago with armies of robots from "the surface" attacking the Island, and to three bearers of the Demon Crown prior to the Doctor. There's just enough information to construct a vague timeline for the backstory, but it's obvious that there's more to the history than what we're told. When asked for further information about the game's world, the writer has said that .
includes many fictional quotes from the game's characters and other people in the game's world. These as well as a handful of other game elements are the only inside look we have into what life on Planet is really like (unless you read the novelizations, anyway). Many details are left to the imagination, such as, "What exactly is 'nerve stapling', anyway?" Somehow, it works.
In , during the final encounter with Nrvnqsr, he and Arcueid have a conversation on things that you don't learn until much later in the game, or in supplemental materials. This is intensified by the use of code-like terms, such as referring to Roa as the "Serpent of Akasha".
games, the only parts of the story that are completely laid out for you are from the single 4-chapter comic ("The Sacrifice"), and the short character bios that each of the Survivors get (). The rest of the plot that's given to you will only be through random (often campaign-specific) character dialogue, about 99% of which isn't even guaranteed to trigger (usually requiring
if you want to catch everything), or occasionally from significant pieces of the map, but most of all from the writings on the walls of different saferooms (and occasionally elsewhere) of other people who have passed through that area, describing bits of their experiences as messages to others, agreement or disagreement with what the military is/was doing, just how bad CEDA failed, how fast somebody changes into a zombie after being infected, and so forth, but not even those people are in 100% consensus about whatever's been going on, and
We might get some answers eventually, but given 's
it's probably not going to be any time soon.
has this to an extent. It began with the
of two rival corporations hiring mercenaries to fight over seemingly trivial objectives. Each mercenary has a distinct and interesting personality, but virtually no
is given and they . Since the release, more of the history leading up to the game has been revealed, and additional bits about some of the classes have come forward.
Potentially, the increase in backstory has only increased this trope. Why does the Announcer control both sides, pitting against each other for no apparent reason? What are her connections to Saxton Hale and the Redmond and Blutarch families? Why is friendship such an alien concept to her? What will the Engie do with all that secret deposits of Australium?
(All this only appears in the addition material. If you're content to run around reducing other players to
it won't bother you. After all, reducing each other to bloody chunks is the point of the game.)
It seems that
is fond of this trope. The
series is almost entirely built out of it. What were the various departments at Black Mesa researching? What do those vast Combine machines actually do? How did those corpses end up where they are? Who was the Rat Man? Who was Lazlo? The vast majority of the story is told by implication only.
The "Rat Man" from
was later explained in
has six legendary heroes. Hakumen is playable, Jubei and Valkenhayn Hellsing show up as NPCs and the rest are shown only as silhouettes until
. It adds Terumi Yuuki to the playable list, adds Platinum ( being that of Six Heroes member Trinity Glassfield) to the NPC list and reveals that Nine is dead. Valkenhayn and Platinum later became playable through DLC and expansions, and
the silent villain Phantom is heavily implied to be a brainwashed Nine.
gives us all kinds of elaborate references to places you never go, ancient tribes and cults, and legendary heroes, none of which are ever seen.
The driving force behind , , qualifies. The only things we know for certain are 1. it involves a horribly evil destructive power, 2. the clan is absolutely fanatical and will stop at nothing to raise their god, 3. the Kusanagi, Yagami, and Kagura clans were the ancestral foes of Orochi, 4. but the Yagami betrayed the alliance, causing their flames to turn purple. Everything else is a confused mishmash... some artifacts we never actually see (until Ash Crimson starts
in the 2003-XIII arc), "maidens" who may or may not have been slaughtered, Kyo getting preferential treatment causing Iori to go all emo or something, a bunch of sealing and unsealing attempts, "battle energy", earth worship and "returning all to nothing", Rugal of all people chosen as a guinea pig, self-destruction, betrayals, counter-betrayals, etc., etc. Worst of all are the numerous plot points and outright sequel hooks that are flat-out dropped, such as a heavily-implied rift between Rose and Adelheid at the end of XI.
It doesn't even end there. KOF mythos designates Orochi as "Gaia's Will"; it's not only the progeny of
(), but her self-appointed guardian.
and is only mentioned in regards to her familial ties with Orochi and her creation of humanity, assuming she's mentioned at all. This begs the questions of where exactly is Gaia in the present, why did she create a being
(), and why is she practically non-existent not only in the face of her child's actions, but when dealing with earthly matters as a whole. More headscratching ensues if yo
is the reincarnation/descendant of .
Those from the Past's goal to obtain the power of Orochi by breaking its seal (yet again) comes across as this, as it's never clearly spelled out during the Tales of Ash what their leader Saiki wants to do with it. Not even in XIII, the climax of the saga wherein said leader makes a formal appearance and all of his scheming comes to fruition.
reveal that the group is more or less the Western European equivalent of the Orochi clan and Saiki needs Orochi to power an artifact known as the Gate (which does appear in XIII) so he can travel back in time and change the flow of history so as to prevent the cult from suffering a horrible loss to their human adversaries (presumably Elisabeth's ancestors, thus explaining her personal vendetta against them and the repeated, equally cryptic mentions of her and Ash's "mission"). Sadly, little of this is explicitly mentioned in the game proper, and Saiki's shady, self-serving nature (complete with the implication that said explanation doesn't hold water) opens up grounds for further discussion.
If there's one plot point in KOF that adheres to this concept more than anything else, it is—without a doubt—the Dragon Spirit. That subplot first reared its head back in KOF '99, with Kensou and Bao shown to be vessels for an otherworldly power coveted by the mysterious Ron (former leader of the Hizoku clan of assassins and a former member of NESTS, the villainous cartel of which KOF's third
centers on). Fast forward to XI and XIII and all we know is that Kensou has apparently mastered its powers () and Ron has unspecified ties to Those from the Past (as Saiki alludes to Ron having warned him of Kensou in their pre-boss fight dialogue). We know nothing of the Dragon Spirit's origins or why Ron has his sights on it, although it can be inferred that this has something to do with Ron's . This is
with several Hizoku members being introduced to the cast since 2000 (including Ron's son Duo Lon, a semi-important supporting character from 2003 onward) and the Tales of Ash having come to a close with XIII, it's possible the next arc will finally revisit these story elements and elevate the ever-elusive Ron to main villain status.
is filled with this trope. It ranges from important things like the , Yukari's (first) invasion of the moon, and , to miniscule details like , the dispersal of the oni, . Add some
and rampant , and the result is an entire series that is prime .
is another prime
series, as this trope tends to be the only source of available information. With one exception (Walter Sullivan, the main enemy in , was originally mentioned in a newspaper article in ) none of them are explored or elaborated upon, and in the case of some this is probably for the best.
has a few, though many of them ended up being explored in the .
: What is the trouble that made Sean unable to return to Ireland? Who are the enemies he made there? What did Sean's father do there exactly? Where did Sean learn to use explosives? What was Sean doing in Budapest when he met Skylar? It's possible that the time period immediately before the
is referenced, and this would also explain how he learned to use explosives.
does it occasionally, most notably with the sorceresses. For example, "Great Hyne" is mentioned as their progenitor and source of their powers, but you never learn who exactly that was, save for some legends told by NPC you're likely to miss.
series has thousands of years of backstory material that is only hinted at in the games, either through dialogue with various characters or in the many in-game books.
games have a lot of this kind of information that you can gather from the various NPCs or furniture in the various towns, regarding the political and economic situations of your surroundings, gossip about local leaders, what the
and culture are like in each place (in some places extending to religious beliefs), optional content you can explore, and once in a while some obscure lore tangentially related to the plot.
Dark Dawn takes this a whole step further with the major characters themselves discussing some stuff in relatively major cutscenes that isn't at all involved in the plot of the game, like the three races of the , the modern geography and political unrest around Morgal and Bilibin, and Kraden's messenger pigeons. Fans were annoyed that this cut into plot and character development, which were less consistent than in the previous two games.
has a lot of background material that isn't wholly relevant to the games' plot. Moreso in the
since the game takes place on a more personal level. Some particularly
of background are that the Primeval Thaig
was apparently part of an ancient dwarven civilization predating the Deep Roads, which had temples and worshiped gods (and that the Primeval Thaig was ruled by a "dwarf so foul the Stone rejected him" and covered in evil red lyrium that drives people insane), that at least one
leads to "another place - beyond this world, beyond the Fade", that Flemeth is, at least according to Morrigan,
something other than merely a mage or an abomination, and that the qunari must have arrived in Thedas (the continent where the games are set) from somewhere because they only showed up three hundred years ago, but no one knows where they came from.
More subtly, there is the whole
business: in theory, it should offer exhaustive explanations and backstories of in-game events, items, and characters. However, in practice, one cryptic reference explanation contains three more references that don't get explained.
The Warden can do this during Witch Hunt, only vaguely hinting to their new companions their precise relationship and reasons for searching for the Witch of the Wilds. Particularly noticable if Morrigan was romanced, where Ariane eventually comes to realise that the Wardens cryptic statement that
"She has my child" didn't mean that
Morrigan had kidnapped their child as she'd assumed, but actually because
Morrigan was the mother of their child. Furthermore, she later figures out the nature of their relationship, asking the Warden if they are aware they subconsciously play with the ring on their finger when they think no-one is looking. After the Warden explains it's part of a pair shared with Morrigan, Ariane is genuinely amused when they
that this means they're
. A lot of the backstory involving dead civilizations and their predecessors from space but you only know (sparse) details from supplementary materials. Squaresoft was hoping to make sequels based on this information.
During the missions, you occasionally hear and read references to "the Baron", who's absence has allowed Sheriff Truart to assert his dominance over the city. No detail is given about who the Baron is or why he is absent, but this little detail creates the feeling that the game is set in a small corner of a much larger world.
series, and , like Valve's games described above, almost entirely bereft of traditional exposition, and the story of each game must largely be pieced together and inferred from item descriptions, level design, and the like. There are occasional characters better informed than the
who will provide some precious information, but they generally prove untrustworthy.
claims the inspiration for this style of storytelling came from him attempting to read Western fantasy novels as a teen despite having a limited grasp of English: he could only understand certain passages, many of which referred to objects or events described in passages he couldn't read, thus turning explained plot points into this trope.
The casino chips you find in loot are described as being from "the Jeni Soleil Casino Cruise heist." This is not explained any further.
Privateers will sometimes say "At least I'm not on that island with the dinosaurs." NB: in January 2015, Ubisoft said that a Jurassic Park type island with dinosaurs was one of the possible locations for Far Cry 5. This might yet turn into .
Historical references abound in , some of which can come off as cryptic background references. An interesting one, however, takes place in the
downloadable-content side-story "The Tyranny of King Washington." In the regular story, the
version of the game included extra missions in which Connor tries to stop Benedict Arnold from betraying West Point to the British, which were omitted from the others. In the DLC, which is set in an alternate timeline but with Connor aware of the events of the main story, he remarks that he finally got Arnold back for West Point when
he kills him at the end of the first chapter. Arnold says that he has no idea what Connor is talking about, since in this timeline he never turned coat and thus never betrayed West Point. To Xbox and PC players who didn't get those missions, it comes off as a cryptic background reference, merely something that happened off-screen.
In the main game and some others, conversations can be overheard in towns—particularly from heralds—referring to real historical events, such as a town crier in Assassin's Creed III informing citizens of events taking place in Egypt that have no bearing on the story at all. In —set in Renaissance Italy—a herald refers to the recent discovery of the New World and its native peoples.
Anything to do with the First Civilization will have tons of this.
like VIII above also does this alot. As it is an MMO, some of these references became fodder for patches and the Heavenward expansion, which focuses on the Dragonsong War, a war between Ishgard's theocratic society and Dravania's dragon and brings more of these with
The Warrior of Darkness and bits and pieces found in the Dusk Vigil and Azys Lla's museum, the fallen
also stated out as such only to get some explanations with the Bonding Coil of Bahamut and Crystal Tower dungeons as well as the area of Azys Lla which explains how it became a
and how its actions up to that point resulted in the Calamity much much later. In addition there are 7 Astral Eras and 7 Umbral Eras, the latter being caused by the end of a Golden Age. But only the events leading to the 4rd, 5th and 7th Umbral Eras (the latter being a transaction to and the time frame of the initial plot to A Realm Reborn) are known to the players, being the aforementioned fall of the Alagin Empire, the War of the Magi and the Calamity.
Searching around Malet Island in the original
will reveal small details of the abandoned island's long dead inhabitants and their cultish worship of
Mundus. None of it ever amounts to anything, and some believe it to be a holdover from the game's time as a
title. Dante himself will occasionally humorously lampshade that none of the island's history has any bearing on his quest.
's lore primarily exists of small bits of flavor text for maps, along with statue plaques, forgotten notes, and descriptions of view points that reveal tiny snippets of the setting.
&&&&Web Comics&
does this a lot, helping to give the sense that it's an alternate history defined by the presence of .
Among the more notable are references to what things were like before
took over Europe, what the places ruled by less pleasant Sparks are like, and the fact that there are multiple popes.
Occasionally they'll also drop and/or hide names we're familiar with in places we can spot them, showing how those individuals are different in this version of history (the most prominent one is actually reasonably well known, but he's addressed by his surname where we the reader are typically familiar with his given name alone). It's Rembrandt van Rijn.
The most recent story arc in
has involved a lot of clarification of throwaway details like this from earlier in the series. We've finally seen Butane t we've gotten a minimally technobabblish explanation of what bor we've seen some court intrigue in the Nemesite E Fructose Riboflavin is finally looking competent enough to explain how he got his t etc.
engages in this from time to time. We never learn anything more about Reverse Moses, other than that he once parted the city to escape Aqua Pharoah.
often makes passing reference to things in distant parts of the Mansion's home country and continent.
Several of these in , such as references to other, as-yet-unmet Scarecrows. Luther and Steven have also made reference to other Instrumen they know called March and Jupiter.
&&&&Web Original&
All over the place in the , because the authors have a huge bible they're working from. So there are references to superheroes and super-teams we haven't met yet, and supervillains who are 'A-level threats' according to an international scale we haven't had explained either, and also tons of references to real-world things to show how close that universe it to ours. Some of the