"How did you know about the parts you weren't there for?"

[Magic_Hat]

A common enough trope in fiction when someone is telling a story that turns into a flashback - there are just scenes the narrator wasn't there for, but he or she somehow knows about them.

I just thought I'd make this thread because I recently rewatched Disney's Aladdin, and it starts with this merchant talking about the genie's lamp - basically a framing device - then the real movie starts. Like how did the merchant know about all this stuff? I mean fan theory...
...the merchant is actually genie and he experience a lot of this stuff first hand. But there's plenty of stuff he didn't witness so how did he know about it? Is he omniscient? If so why didn't he warn Aladdin about all this stuff?
I don't know. Maybe I'm nitkpicking. This doesn't ruin the movie for me. I mean I classify Aladdin is a comedy before anything else. I'm just curious about it.

Then there's a scene in Dragon Ball Z Abridged from season 2 were Freeza is talking about how he killed Vegeta's dad, and Vegeta asks "How did you know about the parts you weren't there for?"

There's also an episode of Invader Zim where the titular Zim asks someone this.

So what are other examples? Ones that ruin a story for you, ones you can overlook, ones that the characters point out makes no sense, and any others...

[Sapphire Guard]

People very rarely tell stories about their past in verbatim, perfect line by line recollection. What the narrator is actually saying id something like 'I went there, met that person, had a conversation about this.' The flashback format fills out the details for the audience, that's not what the people in story are getting. Usually.

Or you could be Roland tripping in a divination ball like in Wizard and Glass.

[Traab]

Or he could just be telling a story. Easy to fill in the details when you are making the whole thing up yourself.

[Darth Ultron]

This really just is such a part of fiction that it's just normal.

Even when in the present, a first person story will often have things happening that the viewer sees, but that the person would not know about. A lot of fiction hand-waves this, and a lot just adds in the ''the other characters told the person later and they added it to the story".

It gets really funny when someone ''remembers" a part of a movie or TV show bit.

[Devonix]

The Genie thing in Aladdin isn't really a fan theory. That's something stated by the director. They just didn't have time to add it in explaining it.

[Lord Raziere]

for the Freeza example:
it actually makes more sense in the Abridged Series, because Nappa was King Vegeta's advisor in that one. So, of course Freeza could've simply asked Nappa what happened during those times out of curiosity or a whim and he would've informed him, because the planets already dead so what does it matter?

Cell telling the story of how he was created in the Abridged series does actually make sense, TFS for some reason just never delves into it: Cell has memories inherited from the Z-Fighters, he is not just the genetic parts of them, but parts of their personalities and what they can remember of their lives. So Cell being made of Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Freeza, Piccolo, Krillin, Tien, makes sure that he can remember the entire series of Dragon Ball up to that point. most of the memory would be Gokus since he was there for most of it, and any gaps would be filled by the others. its how Cell knows all their techniques as well know who Freeza is.

[Kitten Champion]

It's a minor contrivance for narrative convenience.

I've been watching Early Edition - the mid-to-late 90's show about Kyle Chandler getting tomorrow's paper, today - and it does this in its own way when dramatizing the future events in a... flash forward I guess. While it doesn't make sense in-universe for the character to know what the events described in the paper would actually look like, from the perspective of establishing the dramatic stakes immediately it's generally necessary

I'm heavily on the side of narrative flow and concisely conveying information to the audience than complete logical cohesion at the expense of clunkiness or appeasing the Cinemasins crowd, I don't care so long as they don't draw attention to it. Like, for a deep intrigue or mystery plot where the pieces have to fit together, it would stand out.

[factotum]

Is it completely beyond the bounds of possibility that someone who *was* there explained what happened to the narrator, who then passed it on to his audience?

TBH, the only time the "infallible narrator" annoys me is when, for some reason, the author chooses to tell the story in the present rather than the past tense, because I keep wondering where the narrator is and why nobody cares that he's standing there telling some unseen audience what they're up to.

[Kato]

I guess the "someone else (implicitly) told the narrator" explanation is the one that makes most sense on many occasions. Of course that doesn't hold up sometimes of there is no fitting person, for example because they are all dead.

I'm sure there have been occasions where this took me a bit out of the narrative but most of the time I can easily accept it as a narrative device.

[snowblizz]

I guess the "someone else (implicitly) told the narrator" explanation is the one that makes most sense on many occasions. Of course that doesn't hold up sometimes of there is no fitting person, for example because they are all dead.

I'm sure there have been occasions where this took me a bit out of the narrative but most of the time I can easily accept it as a narrative device.

In Pirates of the Carribean it's used as sort of foreshadowing or something.

Discussing something, I think the Black Pearl, they say "oh it kills everyone it meets" and Jack retorts, "ah, but where do the stories come from then mate?".

So it's also a technique which can emphasize that the informaiton is sketchy. Sure we "see what happened" but that's a story someone is telling. Everybody died. But there's a story suriving. Ergo there is something more here to explore.

[keybounce]

I want to point out my favorite two examples of this:

1. In harry potter (both original, and MoR), how did people know that the dark lord used the killing curse to kill everyone, if everyone that could have seen it was dead?

2. In the bible, when people are talking about what happened ... some classic examples are the conversation between God and Satan in the story of Job, and the story about the Donkey that saw an angel so that's why it decided to do what it did (did not) do. I'm sure there's more.

This is an *OLD* story telling device. Old enough to be in the bible, so that makes it ... what's not as old as "older than dirt", but still "older than Shakespeare"?

[Gnoman]

I want to point out my favorite two examples of this:

1. In harry potter (both original, and MoR), how did people know that the dark lord used the killing curse to kill everyone, if everyone that could have seen it was dead?


This isn't an example. In-story, the fact that somebody was killed with the Killing Curse is so blindingly obvious that only a total idiot of a wizard (or someone who's never heard of AK in the first place) can mistake it for anything else. It always leaves perfectly unmarked corpses - described as, essentially, "in perfect health, except dead".

It is like asking "how do you know this guy died of hanging" when you're in the process of cutting him down.

[Binks]

The Genie thing in Aladdin isn't really a fan theory. That's something stated by the director. They just didn't have time to add it in explaining it.
To give a source to this because I found it very interesting. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/peddler-at-beginning-of-aladdin-is-the-genie-directors-finally-confirm-a6697826.html

It's the reason Robin Williams voiced both characters.

[Ebon_Drake]

This is an *OLD* story telling device. Old enough to be in the bible, so that makes it ... what's not as old as "older than dirt", but still "older than Shakespeare"?

Erm, "older than the Bible" maybe? It's also an odd example to mention in this topic, since the obvious answer for any such gaps in holy texts will be that the narrator knew it through literal Divine Revelation. Probably best we leave that subject there though.

[Fyraltari]

It doesn't bother me that much but all of Tolkien's Legendarium are supposed to be in-universe texts compiled into the Red Book and translated by the Professor*.
As result there are generally witnesses to the stuff that happens who could have told the writers (plus some extrapolations for motivations and thoughts).

Except for Tùrin's death. He was completely alone. How come the narrator knows that Tùrin heard his sword speak?

*The Hobbit and LotR are obvious examples, but Akallabêth was allegedly written by Elendil, for example.

[Bohandas]

In Pirates of the Carribean it's used as sort of foreshadowing or something.

Discussing something, I think the Black Pearl, they say "oh it kills everyone it meets" and Jack retorts, "ah, but where do the stories come from then mate?".

Which was also an issue I had with The Princess Bride

[Mordar]

Which was also an issue I had with The Princess Bride

Well, in that case at least there is a whole herd of pirates as well as the current-1 Dread Pirate to spread the tales. One of the advantages of rotating crew, I guess.

- M

[GloatingSwine]

This is a true story. I was there. When I wasn't, and when I didn't know exactly what was going on - inside Gurgeh's mind for example - I admit that I have not hesitated to make it up.
But it's still a true story.
Would I lie to you?


Narrators, eh? Can't live with em, can't stuff em in a barrel and drop 'em in the sea.

[Peelee]

Narrators, eh? Can't live with em, can't stuff em in a barrel and drop 'em in the sea.

http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/2013/11/yump.gif

[factotum]

Except for Tùrin's death. He was completely alone. How come the narrator knows that Tùrin heard his sword speak?


The clue is in the term "legendarium" (as opposed to "history"). Legends, even if based on stuff that actually happened, are generally massively embellished to make everything more impressive--so in the case you're talking about, the narrator simply made that up for a bit of extra dramatic tension.

[Ibrinar]

Or they asked the sword, maybe it chatted all the time if someone talked to it!