Dramatic irony — simply, the idea that the audience knows something that the character doesn’t — is a common tension-building storytelling device. From the point of view of the audience, it’s oppositional from the “plot twist,” where the character(s) and the audience are both in the dark and they figure out the crucial, shocking bit of information at the same time, and it completely transforms the story, both moving forward and retroactively. There are the stories that play both sides. They don’t explicitly inform the audience what’s going on, but there are enough strong hints dropped that when the bolt […]