Dunno What's Going On, But...

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A polite but genuine way for The Messiah to sum up his opinion of a crisis or situation before getting onto his soapbox. This usually breaks down the conflict to its most basic emotional issue, or dismissing that and saying what they're here for. Especially popular way to start a Whoopi Epiphany Speech. Or an ass kicking. Sometimes both.

Examples of Dunno What's Going On, But... include:


Anime

  • In One Piece, Luffy gives one of these for Arlong, telling him that he didn't understand nor care about the slavery or fishmen being just plain better than humans that Arlong was rambling about, only fighting because his Nakama asked for his help.
    • Like many other shonen main characters (Goku, Yusuke Urameshi, Naruto, etc.), this is arguably Luffy's entire character.
    • Luffy went so far as to refuse to hear about Nami's past, saying he was uninterested in it. As a result, he has no idea who Bellemere is, how much Nami has suffered, or how significant it is that she cries while asking him to help her (two things she never did while working for eight years to free her village). He also decides to defend Hiruluk's Jolly Roger against Wapol's attack, despite not knowing that he was a father figure to soon-to-be-crewmate Chopper. Averted when Sanji tells him his backstory and why he would protect the Baratie with his life, and Luffy responds that dying is no way to repay someone saving his life.
  • In Scrapped Princess, Pacifica continually complains that she has no idea what's going on. She's so persistent, that when she's asked to decide the fate of humanity she still claims ignorance, before ultimately using a metaphor to decide.
  • Pretty much Louie's in most of Rune Soldier Louie, mostly at the beginning.

Film

  • In Forrest Gump, After Forrest sees Jenny furiously throw stones at her dead father's house, because it was the place where she was abused and raped by him in her childhood, Forrest narrates that he doesn't quite understood why it upset her to see that place, partly because of his simple view of the world, and Jenny not wanting to talk about it. After she dies, he honors her by having the house bulldozed to the ground.

Live Action TV

  • The 90s "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer" skits on Saturday Night Live starred Phil Hartman as a defrosted caveman-turned-uber-yuppie lawyer who cynically used speeches starting along the lines of, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm just a caveman...Your world frightens and confuses me!" and ending with "My primitive mind can't grasp these concepts. But there is one thing I do know - " thus inspiring them to vote his way.
  • One episode of Scrubs had Kieth of all people interrupt an argument between Carla and Elliot. Ironically, the fight was about him, and Elliots desire to break up with him. His intervention in the fight proved Carla right (that Elliot shouldn't break up with him) and showed it to Elliot.
  • In Kamen Rider OOO, the title character is this. Eiji was just a typical guy who liked helping others and ended up in the middle of a monster attack where a disembodied floating arm gave him OOO's powers to save himself. His reasoning generally comes down to "I have no idea what's going on but someone is in trouble and I want to help them!"
  • Cole in the Power Rangers Wild Force episode Forever Red. He talks about not knowing anything about space and robots and such, then proceeds to use his flying motorbike to blow up an enemy mecha which once almost crushed a zord by standing on it. Yeah, seriously. A mere bike destroyed what an Ultrazord could not.

Video Games

  • In the Kingdom Hearts games, this role often goes to Goofy, giving his trademark laugh before indicating some key point the two others had missed. This might generally be attributed to Dumb Is Good (though the fact that Sora and Donald tend to give things only a cursory examination before charging in makes Goofy look like a genius by comparison).

Western Animation

  • Toots, the Magical Negro of Clone High, would start essentially every sentence with "Now I may be blind, but I can still see that..." His speeches were rarely as inspiring as he thought they were, and mostly just served as a vehicle for countless blind jokes.