...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!
Elephant in the Living Room
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- 136 referencing feature instances
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The "Elephant in the Living Room" (or "in the Corner", or "on the Sofa") is a large topic or problem which, though obvious to everyone, is deliberately or conspicuously not discussed. In most cases, this is used to create comedic tension; for example, when a character has a Big Secret he must struggle to divert conversation away from. In stark contrast, some cases of the trope create a tragic vibe, with an Elephant so awful that nobody can bring themselves to raise the topic. For cases where there is a subject within the series that simply cannot be questioned, or else the whole premise will fall apart, it's a case of why they don't Just Eat Gilligan. If a subject is addressed with some form of implausible explanation, that is most often a Hand Wave or A Wizard Did It; when the subject is simply never addressed at all, it is the Elephant in the Living Room. In politics, this trope is known as a Third Rail Issue, after the third rail in a subway or light rail system which is held at high voltage to provide power to the trains that run on it (and hence would be unpleasant, if not suicidal, to touch). It refers to an issue which the electorate both feels strongly about, and is sharply divided on what to do about it; therefore, a compromise solution is unlikely to satisfy anyone and will just make everyone angry. As a result, no one attempts to do anything. In Anime, this trope is known as a Pregnant Ranma Problem, based on the following anecdotal discussion between the author/artist of Ranma ½ and a random fan at a convention: Which just about sums up 90% of these examples. Cheers! Originated in an 1814 Ivan Krylov fable entitled "The Inquisitive Man", which tells of a man who goes to a museum and notices all sorts of tiny things, but fails to notice an elephant. Another common variant is the much more revolting "corpse at the dinner party." If this is the result of time travel, see Caught in the Ripple. See Beast in the Building if there is a literal elephant in the room or another large animal that doesn't belong indoors. See also Unusually Uninteresting Sight, The Disease That Shall Not Be Named, Ignore the Disability, Suspiciously Specific Denial, Talk About the Weather. |
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Elephant in the Living Room / int_1139fe9c | type |
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Elephant in the Living Room / int_1139fe9c | comment |
In Alley Oop, the character Oscar Boom went straight so many decades ago that many current readers weren't aware that he started out as a crook, and that he had never gone to trial or served jail time for his crimes. Recent storylines have finally addressed this. | |
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Alley Oop (Comic Strip) | hasFeature |
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Elephant in the Living Room / int_14f9297e | type |
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Elephant in the Living Room / int_14f9297e | comment |
A literal one from The Far Side, in which a detective accuses the butler of goring and trampling the victim, ignoring the elephant in a trench coat next to him. Another strip has the elephant hiding behind a fairly small piece of furniture while the homeowners search for him. A similar strip features a wasp detective trying to figure out why there is a rock-shaped hole in the wasp nest that appears to have been punctured from inside the nest, somehow. Standing inside the nest is also a gigantic human child, whom everyone is ignoring (Larson apologies for the lameness of the joke in the strip's caption, saying "it was late and I was tired). |
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Elephant in the Living Room / int_1ce6fbc6 | type |
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Yogi Bear. Like Scooby-Doo, almost everyone knows Yogi and Booboo are talking bears but no one cares that much. Well, the movie does imply that in-universe there is a species of bear that talks (albeit a very rare one). | |
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Elephant in the Living Room / int_1e236912 | type |
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Elephant in the Living Room / int_1e236912 | comment |
Defied in 22 Jump Street regarding how Schmidt slept with the Captain's daughter in college. | |
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FreedomToons: Dr. Mac shows a Spreading Disaster Map Graphic detailing terrorist attacks committed by islamists that overlaps with muslim-majority countries and countries with increasingly large muslim minorities. He then calls the reason behind the surge of attacks a mystery for the ages. | |
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Elephant in the Living Room / int_1f818da5 | type |
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Elephant in the Living Room / int_1f818da5 | comment |
For a while, the elephant in the room was a gag of general use in Channel Awesome. It appeared in CR's Familiar Faces: Baby Doll (a crossover with the Critic) to mention then-recently deceased Gary Coleman, who suffered from the same condition that the character did. And it appeared again in Iron Liz's review of the Tabletop RPG Iron Claw to mention that she was basically talking about a game of Furries. | |
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Elephant in the Living Room / int_2162a284 | comment |
MS Paint Adventures has the Running Gag "What pumpkin?", where the "player" mentions the pumpkin on the "game screen" and by the next scene it's gone or replaced, often with the phrase "What pumpkin?" or the narrator acting as if the player has asked for the object that just replaced the pumpkin. | |
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Elephant in the Living Room / int_261c8d3f | type |
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Elephant in the Living Room / int_261c8d3f | comment |
In his "Top 11 Simpsons Episodes", the elephant mentions a certain Simpsons-related outrage caused by his fans. | |
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Elephant in the Living Room / int_29ce17ec | comment |
People in A Profile make damn sure not to mention track to Masayuki or even hint about Kaine's sex to him. Everyone knows, but mentioning it just won't turn out well. The first is subverted in the second route, however. | |
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Elephant in the Living Room / int_35e05f2a | comment |
From the Volume 4 episode Family from the RWBY series, we have four people, including Yang, her father and two of the teachers she had at Beacon Academy carefully avoid the subject of Yang's missing arm despite the fact that a cybernetic replacement has been delivered until her father's Brutal Honesty brings the subject in the open. One of the teachers even puts a Lampshade Hanging on it. | |
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Elephant in the Living Room / int_3790ae45 | type |
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Elephant in the Living Room / int_3790ae45 | comment |
In Double Homework, Tamara asks Johanna to come to her room to help her with something, and she asks the protagonist to come in a few minutes before that, telling him that she wants to go all the way. It has the desired effect of having Johanna see them about to have sex (and then back off her own advances toward the protagonist), but things become so awkward between the three of them that none of them brings it up for a while. | |
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This whole controversy has been referenced a couple of times on the show, most often by Danny himself. During the Super Mario 64 playthrough, he says he's aware of the conspiracy theories, but they never bothered him because they're completely untrue. During the new The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past playthrough he addresses this trope by name when he mentions that Arin and Jon started the game but never finished it. | |
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A painful example in Spookley the Square Pumpkin: Absolutely nobody mentions the fact that pumpkins are basically butchered on Halloween, which is said to be a holiday for pumpkins. It's really mostly just bad writing. | |
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Incredibles 2: Violet asks her parents if they're going to talk about "the elephant in the room," meaning the fact they were all arrested earlier in the day. | |
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In a round of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue in which one team are given a performance evaluation by the other, and have to justify the complete mess they made of their job, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Susan Calman are zookeepers, trying to explain to Graeme and Barry why they released all the animals and let them roam around. Eventually Graeme says "I'm very tempted to accept your apology but there's the obvious thing you haven't mentioned: The elephant in the room!" | |
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Kung Fu Panda: The question of why a panda has a goose for a father is completely ignored by all of the characters. Roger Ebert initially speculated that in this universe, it may be normal for members of one species to give birth to another — but this was shot down when Kung Fu Panda 2 turned the reason why Po was adopted into a major plot point. Po's adopted status was already implied in the first movie, but the second movie reveals that his adopted father never wanted to bring up the subject because he was afraid Po would leave him to search for his true parents. | |
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The Irish short film Aaron has the two brothers making awkward small talk and dancing around the fact that something clearly happened between them in the past. Later dialogue implies that things were so tense at home that Chris the older brother pretty much just left and never returned. | |
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In Abe & Kroenen, almost nobody mentions the fact that Kroenen was and is a Nazi assassin. For some reason his presumed Nazi beliefs never actually make an appearance, probably because that would be a good way to lose a lot of viewers. His Nazi affiliations are addressed in small ways, like claiming that V is so cool it almost makes him want him give up Nazism, or giving Abe a speech about staying strong, or else the sub-humans will over-run the earth, and no glory will be brought to the Fatherla— at which point he wisely shuts up. |
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Penny Arcade did this at least twice, first in one strip where nobody mentions that Tycho is inexplicably a giant radish and then one where Tycho and Gabe are sitting on a giant Xbox playing with giant controllers (a jab at the original Xbox's enormous size). The radish strip has a real-world explanation (the artist/"Gabe" was screwing with the author/"Tycho"); most fans assumed that since the strip was about the guys confronting Div over his alcoholism, it was a representation of how drunk he was. |
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Defied pretty much all the time in Melody. All of the characters are surprisingly willing to bring up their interpersonal issues to each other... that is, assuming that they’re not completely forgotten. | |
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The diary in Dragomir's Diary is constantly depicted as having a simple, smiling face, and its expression changes as much as those of the human characters. It has also demonstrated the ability to move on its own, and has done so in front of Dragomir himself several times. Despite these oddities, most of the characters view the diary as a normal book, never questioning its silent personality. Now, if they were ever to find out that it can also write in itself... | |
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Schlock Mercenary: Deliberately invoked when Chuso discusses how he's not sure he can order Commodore Tagon, the current top officer of the Toughs, around on a mission. When the Commodore is right there. When the Commodore calls him on it, Chuso the uplifted elephant admits to it, and that it was "meta-humor, and mostly for me." | |
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The Nostalgia Critic: His review of The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter is interrupted by a literal elephant in the room, who makes Doug mention that Jonathan Brandis, the film's star, committed suicide and prompting him to explain that he wasn't insulting the actor, but the poorly-written character. And then he returns in the second list of the Nostalgia Critic's Fuck-Ups, who makes him mention that he made a joke about autism in the review of Ernest Saves Christmas (though the joke was edited out of that review because Doug didn't really think that joke was all that funny anyway). He briefly returned in the review of It (1990), featuring Jonathan Brandis as a main character again. But since the Critic had already explained Brandis' suicide, he told the elephant to piss off. For a while, the elephant in the room was a gag of general use in Channel Awesome. It appeared in CR's Familiar Faces: Baby Doll (a crossover with the Critic) to mention then-recently deceased Gary Coleman, who suffered from the same condition that the character did. And it appeared again in Iron Liz's review of the Tabletop RPG Iron Claw to mention that she was basically talking about a game of Furries. In the Nostalgia Critic's review of Ponyo, the elephant very briefly resurfaces again when the Critic notes that part of the movie Japan is underwater, clearly a sign of being too close to the Tohoku earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster of 2011. In his "Top 11 Simpsons Episodes", the elephant mentions a certain Simpsons-related outrage caused by his fans. He also appears at the beginning of the Critic's Pixels review to remind him that the movie is extremely similar to an episode of Futurama. |
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Literally every episode so far of Kakos Industries has a blatantly obvious one simply due to the existence of the main character, Corin Deeth III who is the heir of the aforementioned company. Despite being the third generation of his family, there is never any mention of his father. Ever. Though Corin possibly not knowing his dad or refusing to speak of him can be explained, it becomes quite the mystery when the grandfather never brings up his own son either. | |
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In Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Champ declares his love for Ron whilst the news team is in the car. Extreme awkwardness ensues as Ron and Brian concentrate very hard on ignoring him. | |
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In Something*Positive it was a very long time before the fate of Monette's baby was addressed. | |
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This is part of what makes Death of a Salesman so tragic: it's clear that Willy is not a great salesman, and that his constant praise of and making excuses for his sons has emotionally crippled them, leaving them unable to function as adults. But none of the Lomans are willing to admit the truth, and to say it ends badly is a massive understatement. | |
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Zootopia: Since this is a World of Funny Animals, it twists the trope into a Literal Metaphor as a joke. During the morning bullpen briefing, Chief Bogo announces that the first order of business is to "acknowledge the elephant in the room," with a stern face while scanning the room. Despite the ominous introduction, it turns out he's actually referring to an elephant officer in the room and wishes her a happy birthday. | |
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A The New Yorker panel featured an elephant lying on a psychologist's couch, complaining, "I'm right there in the room, and nobody notices me." | |
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Letting this trope take over can take the player off Heidi’s romantic path in Daughter for Dessert. Some time after the protagonist goes to Whiskeyville, Heidi asks him if he wants a date, and the two of them can go to a restaurant. Their server is Blake, a handsome young man who filled in briefly for Kathy. The protagonist is insecure about the possibility that Heidi could potentially prefer Blake over him, and Heidi knows it. He can ask her about it; if he doesn’t, then Heidi will end things with him, but if he does, Heidi reveals an embarrassing secret about Blake that means she would never date him. | |
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There's a subplot in Freaks in which Roscoe the clown, who is engaged to Daisy Hilton, is introduced to the fiance of Daisy's sister, Violet, and the line "You must come over and visit us some time," is used. At no point does anyone explicitly mention the fact that Daisy and Violet are joined at the hip. The whole thing is going to be very awkward. | |
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He briefly returned in the review of It (1990), featuring Jonathan Brandis as a main character again. But since the Critic had already explained Brandis' suicide, he told the elephant to piss off. | |
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By contrast, in the sister series Ghost Trick, the government quietly investigated the "impossible cases" starting from the first one, and they know the person (or persons) responsible is trying to sell their power to a foreign government. Said foreign government tries to murder anyone who knows about said power, just to cover their trail. | |
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A small but vocal portion of the Game Grumps fandom believes JonTron became this following his departure in 2013, with some going so far as to claim that he was fired (usually throwing the blame at either Danny or Arin's wife Suzie). Everyone involved denies this, saying the split was amicable, with Arin explaining that they didn't bring Jon up so much because they were trying to respect his desire to form his own identity separate from his work on Game Grumps. This whole controversy has been referenced a couple of times on the show, most often by Danny himself. During the Super Mario 64 playthrough, he says he's aware of the conspiracy theories, but they never bothered him because they're completely untrue. During the new The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past playthrough he addresses this trope by name when he mentions that Arin and Jon started the game but never finished it. |
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Invoked for laughs in It: Chapter Two: Richie comments on Ben's significant weight loss by saying he'd like to address "the elephant not in the room." | |
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He also appears at the beginning of the Critic's Pixels review to remind him that the movie is extremely similar to an episode of Futurama. | |
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In the Nostalgia Critic's review of Ponyo, the elephant very briefly resurfaces again when the Critic notes that part of the movie Japan is underwater, clearly a sign of being too close to the Tohoku earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster of 2011. | |
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Princess Waltz: The game never bothers to address that Chris and Arata, who get together regardless of your actions, aren't just Kissing Cousins, they're half-siblings. | |
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The Party uses a literal example. The guests at a Hollywood party try to ignore the elephant brought home by the host's hippie daughter and her friends. This becomes harder when they give the elephant a bubble bath in the pools spread throughout the house. | |
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Ikemen Sengoku: In Sasuke's route, the main character realizes early on that Sasuke has to be spying for the enemy side but they avoid discussing it because she doesn't want to lose him as a friend and he doesn't want to put her in danger by telling her too much. | |
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El Goonish Shive: Despite there being a masquerade, women having the ability to summon hammers out of nowhere is accepted as normal and not thoroughly investigated to exploit its mechanism. The existence of the ability isn't remarked on by anyone besides the main characters once it's lost. This is because the hammers were introduced long before Cerebus Syndrome set in, and were only brought back as part of a Cerebus Retcon regarding their origin. | |
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In A Simple Plan, starring Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton, hunting buddies find a crashed plane full of money. By the end of the movie, two out of the three are dead and the remaining one had to burn the money so he wouldn't be found. The ending narration mentions that he and his wife never mentioned the money again and tried to live a normal life, but the fear and greed and loss prevented them from ever being happy again. | |
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Welcome to Night Vale has the Shape in Grove Park That No-One Acknowledges or Speaks About. When the Shape was to be removed from the park by the city council, local historians protested on the grounds that it was an important historical landmark. However, since the historians refused to either acknowledge or speak about the Shape, their protest consisted entirely of a series of gestures and grimaces. It turns out there's a good reason for them not acknowledging and talking about the shape: acknowledging and talking about it causes it to get violent. | |
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In Warhammer, The Empire of Man asserts that there is no such thing as a race of man-sized rat people called the "Skaven", living in underground tunnels running throughout the Old World. They do not have advanced weaponry, specially-bred giant warrior rats, and abundant amounts of warpstone. They are not completely malicious, nor are they plotting to destroy all non-Skaven races. They do not outnumber humans ten to one and rely on horde tactics. They do not worship a malevolent god known as the Great Horned Rat. And finally, they do not often resurface in the dead of night to kidnap humans and drag them to their underground caverns. Only insane people (and dwarves) make such irresponsible and absurd claims. That said, one of the Skaven books states that there are two common lies about them: that they exist, and that anyone believes they don't exist. Most people just quietly nod to the Empire's claims and then go down into the basement with a sharpened sword nonetheless. | |
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The YouTube 'celebrity' Hannah Minx is considerably more "blessed" than your average woman, practically to the point where her videos have become less of a personal vlog and more geared towards direct Fanservice. Perhaps to deliberately invoke this trope, she never talks about her body in her videos, and the interviews she's done gloss over it as well. The only people who do mention her body is the video commenters, and they do it in almost every single comment in every video she makes. Is there a trope for From The Mouth Of Fan Dumb? | |
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Parodied by Pearls Before Swine in one strip: | |
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His review of The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter is interrupted by a literal elephant in the room, who makes Doug mention that Jonathan Brandis, the film's star, committed suicide and prompting him to explain that he wasn't insulting the actor, but the poorly-written character. | |
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In Ace Attorney, supernatural abilities are real, and have been conclusively demonstrated. There's a well-known village of mediums, a magazine about the occult, and Phoenix's assistant has shapeshifted in open court multiple times. No one (besides the protagonists) wants to use those powers in the pursuit of justice, besides one guy who wanted to use the mediums to clear his name, and the one case 15 years before the start of the series where the police used a medium to solve a murder. And then apparently stopped forever because of the bad publicity. This is especially bizarre considering how corrupt and shady the justice system is. You'd think 15 years would be enough for someone to try again, unless they're doing it more quietly. By contrast, in the sister series Ghost Trick, the government quietly investigated the "impossible cases" starting from the first one, and they know the person (or persons) responsible is trying to sell their power to a foreign government. Said foreign government tries to murder anyone who knows about said power, just to cover their trail. |
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In Katawa Shoujo, Hisao invokes this trope by name in the early part of the game and, true to its theme, deals with the "elephant" throughout the game. It takes place at a school for students with disabilities/medical conditions, and he understands that it would be rude to ask/talk to someone about their disability/condition without the other person bringing it up themselves, even in situations where it's obvious. | |
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The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part does the same joke as Zootopia with a visual elephant, who's a butler. | |
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Ice Age: The Meltdown features a literal example. Ellie is supposedly a possum. Who's 10 feet tall and weighs 7 tons. And has huge tusks. And is otherwise basically a mammoth. Her "brothers" Crash and Eddie, actual possums at that, don't seem to find this odd, except for her lacking the ability to sneak around. Ellie herself is in complete denial about possibly being a mammoth, in spite of Manny, Sid and Diego trying to convince her otherwise, and still tries to hide, even though no tree can hold her and no bush can cover her. | |
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