You Didn't Ask - TV Tropes

Dave's a jerk.^note

Sarge: You mean you could have turned the bomb off any time!? Why didn't you tell us? And don't say I didn't—
Gary: You didn't ask.
Sarge: [growls in irritation]

— Red vs. Blue

A character on the show has been less than forthcoming about information that would have certainly helped the protagonist figure things out faster. Often, there's a good reason — a Dark Secret or an Awful Truth, for example. In reality, the writers just needed a way to protract the story or build the suspense.

There are two ways this trope is generally employed:

Version one: The detectives or crime labs find evidence that their main suspect in the crime couldn't possibly have committed the murder because he had some other alibi. Usually, the secret they are keeping is illegal, immoral or highly embarrassing to such an extent that they would rather go to prison for the primary crime. It is usually used in crime dramas to get the Red Herring out of the way and move suspicion off of the patsy.
Cop: You didn't tell us that you were having an illicit affair with your secretary while betting on backroom cockfights.
Perp: You didn't ask.
Version two: A Forgotten Superweapon is in the pocket of a non-primary character. This can feel like Deus ex Machina if the viewer was not given enough advanced warning that the character had this in their pocket.
Hero: Why didn't you tell me you had that Applied Phlebotinum in your pocket?
Sidekick: You didn't ask.

Similar excuses include:

Ignorance/Forgetfulness: "I thought you already knew/I already told you."
Assumption: "I thought it was obvious."
Ignorance: "I Thought Everyone Could Do That."
Underestimation: "It Seemed Trivial."
Embarrassment: "I really didn't want to talk about it."
Disgrace: "I hoped I'd never have to admit it."
Danger (except the direst circumstances): "I hoped we'd find an alternative."
Anger: "Why didn't *you* listen?!"
Dismissal: "You told me to "shut up", so I’m only doing as I was told".

A Trickster Mentor, vague prophet, or similar enigmatic figure may deliberately withhold information until asked, either because they can't reveal it otherwise or they need the other characters to keep consulting with them. On rare occasions, they do this because they know the information wouldn't be believed or make sense until a specific time.

This idea is often used when computers or Artificial Intelligence are involved. Because computers are extremely literal, it often happens that the computer or AI knows the answer to solve the problem, but since they weren't asked (or weren't asked correctly), they won't use this knowledge on their own.

A stock response to You Never Did That for Me. Compare Didn't See That Coming and Locked Out of the Loop. Often, They Didn't Ask about something that could have prevented the whole mess (mostly if it would've ended the episode/work prematurely and left the characters with nothing to do). Contrast with Lying by Omission, where the character was asked but withheld the information by using an incomplete answer.

You Can Talk? may also figure in the conversation.

Example subpages:

Other examples:

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Advertising

In a commercial for Ally Bank, there are two girls in a room with a man. He asks one, "Would you like a pony?" When she accepts, he gives her a small plastic toy pony. He then asks the other, "Would you like a pony?" When she accepts, he clicks his tongue a few times to bring out a real pony for her.
Girl With Toy: You didn't say I could have a real one.
Businessman: Well, you didn't ask.
An Australian radio ad for a company capable of cashing cheques without a waiting period or something of the sort:
Bloke 1: Why didn't you tell me about [company]?
Bloke 2: You didn't ask, mate. You didn't ask.

Anime & Manga

Black Butler: Ciel's reasoning when Sebastian asked why he never told him that he had asthma.
Bleach:
- Kisuke Urahara spams and subverts this trope. He's a Well-Intentioned Extremist Guile Hero. He'll do the right thing, sure, but he'll lie, trick and manipulate just about everything he says and everyone he meets. However, as Ichigo observes in Chapter 491, if Urahara is asked to give the information, he refuses rather than playing this trope straight and revealing it when asked.
- Ichigo gets really shocked when he finds out Yoruichi has a brother and asks why she never mentioned him before. She says she didn't think it was important and asks why she should just randomly tell people facts like that.
Death Note. Used by Ryuk whenever Light comes across a new Death Note rule that hinders his plans. This is entirely on purpose from Ryuk, as by his own admission everything he does is For the Lulz, and watching Light scramble to come up with new plans is very entertaining.
Marcille from Delicious in Dungeon is a half-elf, something the rest of her party only learn near the end of their adventure. When Laios asks her about this, she says she wasn't trying to hide it, she just never found a good opportunity to tell them. The World Guide adds that she felt if she was going to tell them, then she'd have to give her whole life story along with it and she didn't have the time for that.
In The Demon Girl Next Door, Lico had been enchanting the cafe's food to give it an extra effect of relaxing the person who eats it and letting them forget their troubles for a bit. While not harmful in small amounts, eating too much of it becomes a problem. She never bothered mentioning the negative side effects of her magical cooking until it made Yuko hyperactive and forgetful after she ate a large amount of the cafe's leftovers. Even Shirosawa didn't know she was doing it.
Dragon Ball:
- In Dragon Ball, Goku's response to Bulma and Krillin realizing the Red Ribbon Army was after him was "No one ever asked me about the Red Ribbon Army."
- In Dragon Ball Z, this is Android 16's response, complete with smirk, when 17 asks why he hadn't mentioned he could detect power levels. 17 accepted the answer with a Touché.
In Ergo Proxy, Re-l is complaining about the lack of power in Mosc Dome when her companion, the Robot Girl Pino, happily chimes in that the power is in fact working.
Re-l: Why didn't you say something?
Pino: Why didn't you ask me?
Full Metal Panic!:
- A variation of this appears in The Second Raid. During a mission where Mao and Kurz are escaping from the enemies chasing them, they end up getting into Sôsuke's car, resulting in a car Chase Scene complete with the enemy shooting at them. Both Kurz and Mao lament "if only we had the weapons to shoot back at them," and Sôsuke proceeds to ignore them. Then, they notice the enemy catching up, resulting in them realizing they need to lighten the car so they can go faster. They contemplate throwing out their kidnap target from the car.
  Sôsuke: Throwing out his body won't be enough and I think the weapons in the backseat are weighting us down, too. Let's scuttle everything.
  Mao and Kurz: Weapons?! (they pull down the backseat, revealing a whole arsenal of rifles, ammo and a rocket launcher) Why didn't you tell us?!?
  Sôsuke: (deadpan) I thought I did.
  Mao: But you didn't, dumbass...
- In fairness to Sousuke, evasive driving is a taxing job, and both of the other two have known him long enough that they should be aware he keeps weapons hidden everywhere.
Hayate the Combat Butler has an odd take on this. After 88 chapters, he reveals to the other girls that he's had a girlfriend in the past, and she's the reason that he's completely clueless about all the other girls all but throwing themselves at him, even the one who's actually confessed to him. Even later he reveals who this girl is, and everyone realizes that they know of her and one of them was actually seen as her best friend. The phrase is never actually spoken, but there are reaction shots with this being their expression.
- Given the amount of mistaken dialogue present, this could clear up most of the confusion of the story. One of the characters seems to have gotten smart about this. Granted, sometimes it's refused, even when one of the girls is asked directly, she can't answer.
Tono in I Think Our Son Is Gay talks freely about the man who turns out to be his boyfriend, but doesn't confirm that they're in a relationship until one of his coworkers asks him directly. He admits that he finds it easier just to wait until the topic comes up in conversation.
In Macross Delta, Hayate asks why Commander Arad never mentioned that he knew Hayate's father. Arad drops this trope, to which Hayate replies "What the hell's with that response?"
In the fourth sound stage of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, Erio and Caro are shocked when Lutecia tells them that her mother has been out of her coma for over a week. When they ask why she didn't tell them when they last visited her, she says they never asked. In the first series, Yuuno shocks Nanoha by revealing that he was actually a Human boy. He thought that he told her already.
My Hero Academia: Izuku Midoriya is shocked when All Might casually admits that he was Quirkless before receiving the power of One For All. Since the admission was made after Midoriya's match with Todoroki, and All Might and Midoriya have known each other for a while, Midoriya asks why All Might hadn't told him, and All Might simply says you never asked. He does it again when its revealed that All Might was originally going to give his Quirk to Miro Togata, but he ended up meeting Midoriya first. This is a habit that he seems to have taken from his mentor/predecessor, Nana Shimura, as according to All Might and Gran Torino, Shimura also had a bad habit of not revealing important information simply because they never asked her.
Naruto:
- Second variation in Episode 111 of Shippuden. Naruto decides he needs a fire element attack. One of his summoned toads casually mentions that he can use one. Of course, when asked why he never mentioned this before, the reply was that he never asked.
- The manga goes on for hundreds of chapters and only near the end is it learned that the tailed beasts actually have names. The shinobi typically consider them to be nothing more than mindless monsters or weapons, so they never thought to inquire about their names, which has led to a lot of deeply-held anger on the beast's part that none of the ninja ever bothered to ask them.
No Game No Life: Sora asks Steph what the chances are of drawing the ace of spades from a normal deck (minus the jokers) are. Steph says one in fifty-two. Sora says that normally that's correct... but if it's a brand-new deck, the ace of spades will be on the bottom, making it easy to draw intentionally. He admits that he didn't specify it was a brand-new deck, but then, she didn't ask. His point is that the reason she keeps losing is because she never asks questions; she just accepts the rules as presented to her, and thus never has the information she needs to win.
One Piece:
- Luffy has a tendency of leaving out important details of his life, even to his closest crewmates, just because no one asked him about it.
  - Luffy knew since childhood that Ace was the son of Gold Roger, but never mentioned it because he doesn't care. Sort of funny, considering how bad he otherwise is at keeping secrets.
  - The same applies to the fact that Luffy himself is the son of Monkey D. Dragon, the leader of the Revolutionaries, and the grandson of Monkey D. Garp, a Marine Vice-Admiral; he just never thought it was relevant enough to tell people without being asked about it first. Justified in Dragon's case: Luffy doesn't even know who he is until Garp tells him in the Water 7 arc.
  - Used for a joke too in One Piece Film: Red, when Luffy reveals that Shanks had an adopted daughter, Uta, but only because he was asked how he knew a celebrity like her. He also forgets to mention that Uta's powers put people to sleep and pull them into a dream world.
- A smaller example came in the Alabasta arc: After travelling across half the kingdom to get to the rebel based in Yuba, they find out it was moved to Katorea, a city near where they started. They could have been saved most of the trip if Eyelash(es) (the camel who Chopper was able to talk to) mentioned that the wagon full of guns that accidentally brought Chopper to Katorea was being used by the rebels. He was promptly kicked in the face by Luffy, Sanji, and Usopp for not mentioning this, scoffs it off, and is then kicked in the face again.
Pretty Cure:
- In HeartCatch Pretty Cure!, when Tsubomi, Erika and the recently-recruited Itsuki arrive at the Great Heart Tree for the first time, Itsuki makes mention of the Cure Moonlight dream. Erika wanted to know why she didn't say anything about it and Itsuki really didn't think too much of it. To their credit, though, Tsubomi and Erika were going to ask Itsuki over it, but Itsuki's concerns over her ailing brother took precedence.
- A dramatic one in HappinessCharge Pretty Cure!, Iona finally asks Hime why she opened the Axia Box and is told that she was tricked into doing so. When she asks why she didn't say so earlier, Hime points out that she tried to, but she kept getting scolded at by Iona. After her Break the Badass moment last episode, Iona realizes that all of that could have been avoided if she stopped for five seconds to find out the reasons instead of constantly painting her as a villain.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica
- This is Kyubey's response when asked why he never mentioned that the process of creating a magical girl involves removing their soul from their body.
- In fact, that's his standard MO. He has never told an outright lie, not even when asked a direct question, but he never tells the whole truth either. He frequently decides to not divulge key pieces of information, like the one described above, or magical girls risking, if not being outright doomed, to turn into their enemies, witches, through The Corruption, whenever mentioning it might harm his goals. The one time he had to be deceptive — in ascribing motives to his antagonist Homura — he merely provoked another girl into speculating about her, then nodded and said nothing. One might chalk this up to his Blue-and-Orange Morality, and suggest that he doesn't understand why humans consider this information important... but he knows that they think it's important, and so he deliberately avoids it: "This is exactly why I didn't tell you. I always get the same reaction every time I say it."
- His unwillingness to explain anything extends even to the basic powers he grants the girls. For example, he neglects to mention Sayaka's Healing Factor until after she had been beaten within an inch of her life, and Kyouko and Madoka ask how she's still standing.
- He's the main source of exposition, by the way. There are major setting elements that the audience only has his word on.
In Ranma ½, this is literally Ukyô Kuonji's explanation for not revealing that Wholesome Crossdresser Tsubasa Kurenai was a boy she met while infiltrating an all-boy's school until after Ranma has been running around trying to "out-girl" him. For added bonus, she claims that since nobody asked, she figured they must have known — Akane immediately Lampshades how stupid an assumption that is.
In Sankarea, the girl attached a GPS to Sanka. Professor Boil berates her for not telling anyone as they have been looking for her for the past few days. She causally replies in her defense, "no one asked me".
In The Savior's Book Café Story in Another World, "God" can give his chosen saviors as many magical wishes as they want, but they always assume that they can only grant one wish. Tsukina is the first person to ask and he grants all of her wishes, being as specific to what she wants that she's able.
Shaman King: The X-Laws go to great lengths sacrificing many of their numbers to figure out what medium Hao is using to channel the Great Spirit of Fire so that they can destroy it. When Hao realises what they're after, he says they could have just asked; he's using the oxygen in the air around him.
Slayers: Xellos often cheerfully informs the group of such hidden things when they finally ask him about them incredulously. Examples include the fact he used their entire planned heist as a distraction for his, his nature as a mazoku (demon), and numerous other such subjects. However, he does have limits: if he doesn't feel like revealing something, his trademark Catchphrase "That... is a secret!" is all anyone's going to get from him.

This is very justified in Xellos's case, since he feeds on negative emotions and gets quite a bit of pleasure out of watching the others squirm. There's also the fact that his goals are often different from those of the group... When the group discovers that Xellos is actually evil, it turns out that Gourry was aware of the fact the entire time, but didn't say anything because he thought it was obvious.
Tiger & Bunny: Kotetsu just kind of forgot to tell all his coworkers (sans Antonio) — for at least a year — that he's a widower with a preteen daughter. They were understandably surprised. Especially Karina.
Karina: You'll make a great father someday.
Antonio: He already is.
Karina: What.
Urusei Yatsura: In one manga chapter, Ataru, Lum and several of their friends went camping. Lum was making lunch and everyone were happy... but Ataru. He — who usually eats ANYTHING and EVERYTHING he can have his hands on — adamantly refused to eat. His friends nagged him about rudely rejecting Lum's food... and then they tried it. Right away they dragged it away and asked him why he had not warned them that Lum's food is very spicy. His answer? They did not ask (and he did not want to warn them).

Comic Books

Fantastic Four: In one comic, Ben finds out that for years, Reed has been taking a cut of the profits from each of his inventions and depositing it in a bank account in Ben's name. When Ben asks why Reed never told him about this, Reed's response is "I... assumed you knew." followed by several flashback scenes of the team meeting with their accountant for the annual financial review. Reed, Sue, and Johnny are all shown being very attentive and taking notes. Ben, on the other hand, is reading a magazine, playing with a Rubik's Cube, playing with a Gameboy, totally not paying attention... and Ben only found out because he was lamenting about not having any money. The team accountant, who was standing right there, told Ben that his money was just fine. The accountant said it in a very matter-of-fact manner, assuming Ben knew about it because for years, he'd been sitting in annual meetings where his finances were reviewed.
Gen¹³: An "underestimation" variant: When their housekeeper Anna comes to the kids' rescue, it's revealed that she is in fact a battle droid. When Freefall remarks that Mr. Lynch never bothered to tell them that, Lynch replies "It just never came up."
Green Lantern In the miniseries Emerald Dawn, when Hal Jordan asks why the lantern never told him it could talk, it responded "No inquiry was made". Immediately lampshaded by Hal.
Hal Jordan: "You never asked." Right. Silly of me.
Iron Man: In Invincible Iron Man (2016), Tony Stark has been in a coma and Riri has been aided by an A.I. of him. When Tony is missing, a huge search is on with various twists and dead ends. Talking it over, it suddenly hits Mary Jane and Riri that they've failed to see if the A.I. knows about what happened. After a long pause under their gazes, the Tony A.I. states "To be fair... no one directly asked me before now."
Knights of the Old Republic: Elbee's reason for never mentioning a very crucial fact from #10 until 37 issues later. The Mandalorian warrior Rohlan Dyre weighed 17 kilos less after returning from picking up the unconscious war criminal Demagol, thus proving that Demagol has been impersonating Rohlan the whole time.
Thor: Nick Fury once showed up in one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Flying Cars to pick up Thor's civilian identity — yeah, S.H.I.E.L.D. knew who he was, anyway. When Thor made his transformation, Fury nearly lost control of the car, and exclaimed, "Why didn't ya warn me about the special effects?!" Thor's response: "Thou didst not ask."
The Sandman (1989): This seems to be an actual mystic rule binding the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone. Even if they want to help a questioner — and they often don't — they can't unless the questioner asks the right questions.
Supergirl:
- In The Supergirl from Krypton (2004), when Superman tells Supergirl that he didn't know she could already use her X-Ray Vision, Kara answers: "You didn't ask".
  Superman: You noticed the lead, hmm? I didn't know your X-Ray vision had kicked in.
  Supergirl: You didn't ask.
- In Red Daughter of Krypton, when Supergirl demands to know why neither of her partners warned her that she'd die if she took her Red Ring off, Guy Gardner answers it wasn't an easy thing to bring up, i.e., she didn't ask.
X-Men:
- Claremont did this with Wolverine's real name in Uncanny X-Men (1963). From his first appearance all the way to the end of The Dark Phoenix Saga, his teammates only knew him as "Wolverine". The audience first learned it second-hand from a leprechaun, and first-hand later on in a conversation with his then-love interest. But the X-Men themselves only learned during a reconciliation with Alpha Flight that his name was "Logan". When asked why he didn't share this information, well... you can guess his answer.
- Wolvie was the living embodiment of this trope while Claremont was building him up. "You speak Japanese?" "You worked with them?" etc. For a while it was practically his Catchphrase.
- It was also turned around one time, when Wolverine was surprised ("I didn't know.") to learn that the Beast speaks Pashtun, and Hank replied....

Films — Animation

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters: When Meatwad displays the ability to shapeshift into a giant, Frylock is immediately surprised that he had never done that before, with Meatwad replying is that nobody asked him to do that.
In The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars, Wittgenstein the supercomputer offers a completely ludicrous method through which space travel (not to mention easy air travel and safe permeation of Earth's atmosphere) can apparently be achieved, and Radio says "So why isn't anyone else down there?" to which Wittgenstein replies, "Because no one ever asked me to get them there!"
Ne Zha: After Ne Zha chokes down the water demon's snot, the only antidote to his petrification attack, he asks how he's supposed to use it on Ao Bing and the little girl, since their mouths are already petrified. The water demon cheerfully explains that it can just be applied to the skin, and when a disgusted Ne Zha asks why he didn't mention that earlier the demon says that Ne Zha didn't ask. The next shot shows him with a noticeable black eye.
The Princess and the Goblin (1992): Irene and her new boyfriend Curdie play this trope almost word-for-word. After narrowly escaping the tunnels full of evil goblins, Irene wants to kiss Curdie to thank him for saving her life, but they are interrupted when Irene's caretaker, Lootie, starts calling after her, which reveals to Curdie that Irene is a princess — she hadn't though to say and he hadn't thought to ask.
Lootie: (hollering insistently from the castle grounds) Princess Irene!
Curdie: "Princess?!" You didn't tell me you were a princess!
Irene: You didn't ask.
Toy Story 4: Woody is surprised that Bo Peep's sheep have names. After saying that she never told him they had names, Bo Peep says that he never asked.
Trolls Band Together: Poppy said this word for word when John Dory pointed out that he didn't realize that Branch cared about his brothers so much when he had a picture of his bunker.
Poppy: This is Branch's bunker. He built it for you guys.
John Dory: I didn't know.
Poppy: I guessed you never asked.

Films — Live-Action

Appointment with Venus: When Major Mooreland discovers that Nicola is the sister of the Suzerain, the hereditary ruler of Armorel, he asks why she hadn't told him earlier. She replies "I thought you already knew".
Happens twice in The Avengers (1998).
- Mrs. Peel: Do you always obey orders?
  Steed: Always. Except when I don't. For example, if I were, perish the thought, under orders to kill you...
  Mrs. Peel: Pity you never told me.
  Steed: You never asked.
- Colonel Jones: As I recall, there was some former Ministry land used as a secret military installation and sold by us to Sir August years ago. And authorized by Father. And this is the site.
  Steed: But where is it?
  Colonel Jones: According to your map, it's an island right here in the middle of London. It must be where he's controlling the weather.
  Steed: Why did you never tell anyone?
  Colonel Jones: Nobody ever asked.
  - This second one is justified by the fact that Colonel Jones was handed a dead-end sideways posting after suffering a life-changing injury that limited his ability to undertake fieldwork, and is implied to be somewhat bitter about this. Especially since you'd think a man afflicted with permanent invisibility could have been found something meaningful to do for an intelligence agency.
Reversed in Batman (1989), when pre-Joker Jack is preening himself in the mirror:
Alicia Hunt: You look fine.
Jack Napier: I didn't ask.
In Laurel and Hardy's Block Heads, Ollie reunites with old war buddy Stanley, who is sitting in a chair in a way that makes him look like he'd lost a leg. Putting on a cheerful front, Ollie offers to take Stanley home, even carrying him quite a while under great strain. After a couple of spills, and only after Stanley helps him up, Ollie growls "Why didn't you tell me you had two legs?" And, you know...
Born Free: There's this exchange between George and Joy Adamson when the former brings the orphaned cubs home:
George: Not very good-tempered, are they?
Joy: Well, neither are you, when you're hungry. I don't suppose you've fed them?
George: No, I can't say I have. You didn't pack any lion's milk for me before I left.
Joy: You didn't ask me.
In Death Note: The Last Name, this is Ryuk's explanation for why he hadn't told Light why, if you have a Death Note, your lifespan is hidden from a human who has traded for Shinigami-sight (which allowed Misa to discover who he is). In the manga and anime, he says he didn't know.
Dracula 2000 has a variation. In this film, Dracula is actually Judas Iscariot. During the final battle with Mary, as Dracula gets the upper hand, he gestures to a cross and snarls, "He wouldn't have me." Mary's response is "Did you ever ask?" Dracula is utterly stunned by the implications, and Mary takes advantage of the opening.^note
In The Elephant Man, Treves assumes and even hopes that John Merrick is an idiot. (If he is an idiot, it means he won't realize just how unlucky he is.) Merrick surprises Treves when it's revealed that he can read and recite an entire passage from Psalms from memory. When Treves asks him why he didn't tell him he could read his answer is, "You didn't ask."
Inverted in The Evil That Men Do. Holland phones the Big Bad to demand a ransom for his kidnapped sister. After the conversation ends, Holland hangs up and tells the woman with him that they need to clear out of the house right now.
Holland: He knows where we are.
Rhiana: How do you know?
Holland: He didn't ask.
Fat Albert At the mall, Fat Albert tries on a whole bunch of clothing, but he states to the clerk that he's broke. The clerk angrily collects all the clothing back.
Clerk: That'll be $10,428.22.
Fat Albert: Uh, I...I don't have any money.
Clerk: WHAT?! Why didn't you tell me that?!
Fat Albert: You didn't ask.
(The clerk grabs back all the clothes in a huff)
In A Few Good Men, Kaffee and Galloway arrive at the possibility that the Code Red that resulted in Santiago's death and Pvt. Downey and Cpl. Dawson's incrimination was ordered by their lieutenant, Kendrick. Kaffee goes to meet them both to ask them if that's the case and they both confirm. Kaffee asks them why they didn't tell him before, to which Dawson replies, "You didn't ask us, sir." Kaffee is less than pleased.
Flaming Star: Sam, Neddy and Clint debate why the Kiowas got violent and Pacer pipes up to reveal that the tribe got a new chief and that he has known this for a while. Sam asks why he didn't say so sooner, to which Pacer replies that he doesn't tell if nobody asks. Sam says that's the Kiowa in him talking.
In The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, a subplot involves taking a rich man's lazy stoner son with him on the voyage, basically to just get him out of the house.
Haroun: Dangerous? Dangerous?! You never told me it would be dangerous!
Sinbad: You didn't ask.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: After Mantis and Nebula are unable to communicate with the children held prisoner by The High Evolutionary (and Nebula's shouting at them just causes them to cry hysterically), Drax is able to calm the children down by doing his impression of a monkey, and then is able to tell the children in their language to go to a safe place.
Nebula: Why didn't you say you could speak their language?
Drax: Why didn't you ask?
In the Don Knotts film How To Frame A Figg, Figg learns that the computer with the evidence that would clear him had been buried at the local cemetery. After digging it up, Figg and his sidekick try to buy enough extension cords to plug it into the nearest outlet... which is about a half-mile away. They wind up jury-rigging a whole bunch of cords together (including a mixer and a neon sign) and get within three feet. That's when Figg notices an outlet sticking up out of the lawn... about six feet from the grave. The sidekick, of course, knew it was there all along. Why didn't he speak up? GUESS.
In The Karate Kid (1984), Daniel is more than a little surprised to learn that it was the old handy-man, Mr. Miyagi, who had saved him from the five-on-one Kobra Kai massacre.
Daniel: Why didn't you tell me?
Mr. Miyagi: Tell you what?
Daniel: That you knew karate.
Mr. Miyagi: You never ask.
In Labyrinth, one of the hurdles that Sarah has to overcome is knowing not only to ask, but how to ask to get any useful information; early in the film, when she laments that it's useless to ask Hoggle anything, he retorts, "Not if you ask the right questions!" It takes a while for the lesson to sink in properly.
In The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers when Frodo and Sam hook up with Gollum to guide them, Frodo asks Gollum to "take us to the Black Gate" of Mordor, which he does. They see how massive and impenetrable the entrance is, and when they are about to make a charge for it anyway, Gollum pulls them back and tells them there is another way in. Sam asks why he didn't mention this before. Well... you didn't ask... (See below under literature for more.)
Two in a row in The Princess Bride; although Westley did ask, this trope is referenced in the dialogue:
Westley: Why didn't you list [the wheelbarrow] amongst our assets in the first place?
In Reservoir Dogs, this is Mr. Blond's response to why he didn't mention earlier that he has spoken to Nice Guy Eddie. Mr. White deadpans, "Hardy fuckin' har." The opposite also applies when Mr. Pink asks Mr. White why he told Mr. Orange his real name if he wasn't supposed to. Mr. White replies "he asked", though the fact that the one who now has this information was shot in the stomach and expected to die may also be a factor.
A particularly sinister example comes from cult classic Return to Oz. The Nome King has transformed the Scarecrow into an ornament for his palace, and offers Dorothy and her friends the chance to play a guessing game to change him back. Of course, the penalty for losing the guessing game is to be transformed into an ornament yourself, which the Faux Affably Evil Nome King didn't even mention (although he does say that they risk something) until the first member of their party lost. When called on it, he gives them a reasonable second option they can take instead of the guessing game.
Dorothy: But you didn't tell us about it!
The Nome King: You didn't ask. Perhaps you'd like to visit my fiery furnace!
Rush Hour (1998):
- Jackie Chan's character is Obfuscating Stupidity by pretending to not understand English. A few minutes, a chase scene, and a held-at-gunpoint later, he demonstrates that he does speak English.
  Detective James Carter: All of a sudden you're speaking English now, huh?
  Chief Inspector Lee: A little.
  Detective James Carter: "A little," my ass. You lied to me.
  Chief Inspector Lee: I never told you I didn't. You assumed I didn't.
- And then this is reversed near the very end of the movie, with Carter thanking the Chinese flight attendant in Chinese.
  Lee: You never told me you spoke Chinese!
  Carter: I never told you I didn't. You assumed I didn't.
- However, in the sequel it's revealed that his knowledge is very poor and spotty, and that he's more likely to accidentally insult your grandmother than say anything useful. Plus, all he really said was "thank you". That's not the same as speaking the entire language.
Shrooms: When Holly attempts to use Bernie and Ernie's phone and finds that it doesn't work:
Holly: You said you had a phone.
Ernie: You asked did we have a phone. You never asked did it work.
Also done in Some Kind of Wonderful at the end when Watts, the tomboy, finally gets with Keith. When he asks "Why didn't you say anything?" to Watts, she answered "You never asked."
In Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, this is more-or-less Spock's excuse for never mentioning he had a dangerously insane brother running around the galaxy.
In Taxi, Daniel and Emilien are observing Krüger's workshop and waiting for it to close. After a few hours, Daniel mentions that Krüger has insomnia and his workshop is open 24 hours a day. Emilien asks why he didn't mention this earlier, and Daniel replies that he didn't ask.
San Te of The Thirty Sixth Chamber Of Shaolin spends an entire year at the Shaolin temple doing menial chores and waiting for his Kung-Fu training to begin. When he brings it up with the abbot, he informs him all he had to do was ask to be trained. After all, they didn't know he came specifically to seek it out.
In The Toy, Jack and bratty kid Eric are trying to break into Eric's father's printing press, when Eric casually mentions that he has the key. Jack asks Eric why he never told him he had the key and gets the stock answer, which Jack doesn't find particularly amusing.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit: After Roger handcuffs Eddie, Eddie informs him that he lost the key to the cuffs. Later, Eddie is sawing the cuffs and the tables rocks. Roger slips out of the cuffs to steady it. When Eddie realizes, Roger quickly puts his back on.
Eddie Valiant: You mean you could've taken your hand outta that cuff at any time?!?
Roger: No, not any time. Only when it was funny!

Jokes

A married couple is arguing, and right out of the blue the wife yells that the husband doesn't say "I love you" anymore. The husband is completely stunned by this and replies, in that tone people get when they have to explain things to very slow children, "I told you that when I married you. If I change my mind, I'll let you know."
Less "joke" than "morality tale," but one old story talks about a teenager from a wealthy family who expects a car as a graduation present, as is the tradition with rich people in his town. On graduation night, his parents present him with a book instead; he's so angry that he storms out the house and refuses to speak to them for years. When he finally comes back decades later — usually because one or both of the parents have died — he finds the book sitting on his table, untouched. He opens it... and discovers either a check for the exact amount of money for his dream car or the title of ownership for it. Since he never bothered to ask why his parents gave him another gift and was an Ungrateful Bastard instead, he lost everything. A variation (which goes heavier on the Glurge factor) has the present be a Bible instead, with the moral of opening your heart to Jesus and His word to discover salvation.
Jokes about cowboys who, being rugged manly men, are taciturn to a (comedic) fault.
- Bill, what did you give your horse when she had cramps?
- Turpentine.
(some time later)
- Bill, I gave my horse turpentine for her cramps, and she died.
- Yep, same thing happened to mine.

Religion

The Talmud:
- One at least one "thought you knew that" example:
  When Rav Yosef taught this, Abaye said to him: What is the reason that until now the Master did not explain the matter to us in this way? Rav Yosef said to him: I did not know that you needed this information, as I thought that you were already familiar with the baraita. Have you ever asked me something and I did not tell you?
- Pirkei Avot also gives us the proverb "A shy student (i.e., one who won't ask questions) cannot learn."

Tabletop Games

Paranoia: One official mission has the GM offhandedly mention that there's a bot in the middle of the briefing room. It is, in fact, a Vampire Bot 666, every bit as visibly lethal and Squicky as the name implies, but the GM is specifically instructed not to describe it in any further detail unless (a) the PCs think to ask or (b) it actually does something.

Theater

In Spamalot, King Arthur needs to find a Jew. After some searching, his servant Patsy reveals that he is Jewish on his mother's side. When King Arthur asks why this information wasn't revealed previously, Patsy responds with, "That's not exactly the sort of thing you say to a heavily-armed Christian."

Web Animation

If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device:
- When the Emperor tells the history of the entire universe, the first question (after the two listeners pick their jaws from the floor) is:
  Magnus: Anyway, why did you not tell anyone of this before?
  The Emperor: Because you never fucking asked, that's why. Besides, what was written down was apparently censored by those charming fucknuggets in the Inquisition.
- Magnus knew that Rogal Dorn was still alive, though not where. When the Emperor confronted him about him knowing and not telling them, Magnus was surprised that the Emperor didn't know because he's the more powerful psyker.
Red vs. Blue:
- When Gary effortlessly disables a bomb about to blow up the base the cast is standing in:
  Sarge: Gary, you mean to tell us you could have disabled the bomb this whole time, and you didn't say anything? And don't say it was because I didn't—
  Gary: You didn't ask.
  Sarge: [angrish]
- And again when Grif's sister was supposed to replace the dead Blue captain:
  Simmons: Oh my God what's wrong with you? Why didn't you tell us you were a Blue?
  Sister: Because—
  Simmons: And don't say "because nobody asked"!
  Sister: But nobody did ask!
  Simmons: Goddammit.
- In the Season 14 episode "Get Bent", Church learns that the Female!Reds were able to renovate their base simply by asking Command for the necessary materials;
  Church: Wait... You mean we could've... All we had to do was... We just had to ask?!
Animated Inanimate Battle has this in episode 5 between Fireball and Apricot:
Apricot: Science, engineering...it's my thing. I built the Pear Detector.
Fireball: Dude! You never told me any of this!
Apricot: You never asked...

Web Comics

The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: In "Futures Trading", the Doctor sends a message to Dracula to ask him to use his giant moon laser to help the humans against the space dinosaurs, and he immediately complies. Naturally, the reason he didn't do this until more than a decade after the initial invasion was because they hadn't asked. They don't usually like the laser, after all, so best to wait until asked. (It is true that using it at just this time was the best way to save the day.)
Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures: During the all All Hail Queen Mab story arc, it is revealed Mab has a daughter. When questioned about by Jyyras she simply responds "No one ever asked."
Erfworld:
- Wanda starts to give this answer when Parson asks why she hadn't disclosed her stash of canned spells. Parson rejects the answer before she can finish it. Parson is sensible enough to make the oft-neglected point that, as her superior and battle planner, she has an obligation to volunteer pertinent information.
- It later comes up again as part of Great Mind conspiracy planning: The level of secrecy just above "Need To Know" is designated "Need To Ask."
Girl Genius
- When Lars finds out that Agatha -who he has a crush on- is a scion of the most infamous family of maddest scientists in the continent, and her monster soldiers obviously knew about it and "declined" to mention it, he asks the sensible if there is something else he would like knowing.
- In the Franz Scortchmaw side story, when the adventuring party is discussing how someone appears to be helping them from the shadows, Humongulus blithely says "It is the ghost man. He is hiding behind that rock." As Franz stares at him, he explains "Humongulus sees many things! Usually no-one wants to hear about them."
In Harkovast, Chen-Chen never mentions the fact she is a kung-fu master until the group get ambushed and she reveals her fighting skills.
Doc Scratch from Homestuck bases his whole existence around this. He claims that only he can know all the facts, and he's only saving time by not telling everybody everything. However, it's clear he has his own agenda, and he fulfills it by leading people to the wrong conclusions through Exact Words, leading up to a climactic payoff at the end of Act 5.
Doc Scratch: If I do not volunteer information you deem critical to your fate, it possibly means that I am a scoundrel, but it does not mean that I am a liar. And it certainly means that you did not ask the right questions.
It's a big plot point late in Mob Psycho 100 that Tome and the Telepathy were so unmotivated to pursue the stated goal of their club that they completely failed to realize that the boy who dropped out of the club at the very beginning, Takenaka, was a telepath the whole time.
Narbonic: Here. Dave had a damned good reason for not wanting to mention the teleporter; it was specifically designed to provide The Alcatraz with supplies without risking escapes — it's "receive" only...
Dave: Also, live tissue comes out as a pulpy shapeless blob of protoplasm.
Helen: Let's do it!
Dave: See, this is why I didn't want to tell you about the teleporter.
In The Order of the Stick strip "Omission Possible", this is the first reason Durkon gives for not having told the evil spirit controlling his body that the keystone to the dwarven temple would crumble to dust if someone used it without the owner's permission. The second reason is "Also, I hate ye an' I want ye ta fail."
In RPG World, Cherry is revealed to be an elf, after the strip had been running for several years, much to the surprise of the other characters. Mind you, her pointed ears are clearly visible in her first appearance. Though the early images are a bit inconsistent.
Parodied in this Yahtzee Takes on the World comic. (Yes, that Yahtzee.)
"How the hell was I supposed to ask [whether you're really a space alien]?!!"
"Hey, it's your culture's code of etiquette, not mine."

Web Original

The Binder Of Shame:
"Wait a minute. Guns and katanas can't scratch these things but their necks snap like twigs?"
"Not my fault none of you thought to do that."
In Noob, Sparadrap didn't bother telling anyone that getting his avatar banned then starting all over again whith a new one did not get him rid of his Clingy MacGuffin/Artifact of Doom until his guild was about to out of its way to get him a new equivalent to the item that the artifact was replacing. Justified as it was his first time interacting with his guild after several days of levelling up under his brother's wing and he was told to not mention the Clingy MacGuffin/Artifact of Doom to anyone outside his guild.
In the [title of show] show, the cast ask Mindy why she didn't tell them Cheyenne Jackson shot her (they had been trying to catch her killer in front of her the whole episode). She replies with this.

Real Life

In Tip O'Neill's first Congressional election, he campaigned all over Massachusetts, but he found out that his next-door neighbor, an elderly woman, said she would not vote for him. Upon going to her house and asking her why she wouldn't vote for him, she answered that he'd never asked her to. After that, O'Neill asked as many of his constituents as he could if they would vote for him.
There are many examples of celebrities that would have gladly provided their own voices on an animated series if only they'd been asked.
- Michael Dorn noted that he would've voiced himself in the South Park episode "Fun With Veal" if he had been asked to; he wasn't asked.
- Wil Wheaton stated the same about the Robot Chicken voice sketch making fun of the fact that Star Trek: The Next Generation would stoop to any low to force viewers to like Wesley.
Richard Lee calls this statement "the bane of anthropologists everywhere". He mentions it as part of a hilarious story about trying to buy a cow for a village full of people to thank them for helping him, only to have them complain about it and make fun of it and call him an idiot for buying such a terrible cow. Turns out, that's what they do to anyone who seems to be getting too high an opinion of himself — and they would have told him that if he'd thought to ask if they were serious.
During the pre-production of Gone Girl, the production team spent months trying to find the perfect town that could stand-in for the book's fictional town, and finally settled for Cape Girardeau. When David Fincher mentioned this to the book's author, she casually said, "Oh yeah, that is perfect. I was actually thinking of Cape Girardeau when I wrote it." Fincher was dumbfounded for about a minute before stating: "You know, these things don't have to be a fucking secret."
Bill Clinton's famous "definition of 'is'" quote is actually an example of this. He interpreted the question "Is there a sexual relationship between you and Monica Lewinsky?" to mean "Is there presently...." when apparently the interlocutor intended to ask "Is there now or was there ever..." and just formatted the question poorly.
The creators of The Legend of Korra were worried about breaking the unspoken rule that forbade openly gay characters until they realized it was only unspoken because no one had bothered to ask. So they went to the executives and Nick permitted the storyline, thus allowing the gay pairing of Korra and Asami, who get paired together into an Official Couple in the final moments of the Grand Finale.
In US court system (as well as other common law countries), witnesses are generally only allowed to answer questions they are actually given by either one of the attorneys or the judge (if the witness goes on a tangent beyond the scope of the question, the other side can object on Narrative grounds). A common flub among trial attorneys is forgetting to ask a question to bring some piece of testimony in, only for the attorney to realize after they had finish questioning the witness they forgot to ask.

No one asked for a stinger, so you're not getting one.
...Wait a minute.

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