http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LightningReveal

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It's a dark and stormy night. The main character(s) are surrounded by darkness. A sense of foreboding wavers in the air, and the tension is so thick, a knife isn't fit to cut it, and you would instead require a heavy-duty chainsaw.

This is the perfect concoction for the Empathic Environment to whip up a good old Lightning Reveal. There's something sinister lurking in the shadows that the character(s) and perhaps audience is unaware of until lightning strikes. In that flash of lightning something is revealed hence, well, the Lightning Reveal.

Bonus points if the flash is so quick, the audience/characters are unsure if they saw anything at all.

Compare Dramatic Thunder, Stop Motion Lighting, Emerging from the Shadows, Natural Spotlight.

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Examples:

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Anime And Manga

Comic Books

Done beautifully in book three of Bone when Fone Bone, Thorn and Gran'ma Ben are on the run from the rat creatures in the middle of a storm. Lighting flashes light up the otherwise pitch black backgrounds, giving brief glimpses of the rat creature horde closing in, as well as when the Red Dragon appears and chases them away.

Wonder Woman (1987): When Diana is being visited by her Justice League colleagues while in the hospital after Neron's attack Batman's arrival is shown when her dark room is light up by lightning in the night.

Wonder Girl: While Cassie is arguing with Tim in front of a bunch of hydra eggs her anger causes a thunderstorm to build and the lightning flash reveals that the hydras have hatched and are preparing to attack them.

Fan Works

The Power of the Equinox: When Cheerilee goes to the home of Scootaloo to inquire about her absence from school , she has a bad feeling when Scootaloo's adoptive father Brutus Meadows invites her inside. A flash of lightning reveals momentarily in the dark hallway and stairs blood as well as feathers (which are revealed to be a result of Brutus killing his wife Vibrant Glow last night Realizing something bad has happened, Cheerilee runs off to get help, while Brutus pursues her to silence her forever.

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Film - Animated

Film - Live-Action

Literature

Live Action TV

In Smallville, Escape, the silver banshee reveals its true form whenever lightning strikes .

. Used brilliantly during the opening of an episode of CSI, showcasing the killer lurking in his victim's bedroom.

Parodied in an episode of Friends where Phoebe, suffering from chickenpox, is revealed to her long distance relationship boyfriend by a flash of lightning, causing him to jump. When she asks if she really looks that bad, he replies that he was just surprised by the lightning.

Happens in an episode of Only Fools and Horses where the trio are staying in Boycie's cottage. Of course, the escaped serial killer only gets shown when Del turns around, so the whole thing also ends up being a case of a Cassandra Truth.

Supernatural. When Castiel first meets our heroes, his claim to be an Angel of the Lord is disbelieved. A flash of lightning then throws the shadow of spreading angel wings on the wall behind him.

Theater

According to William Goldman's book The Season, there was a Broadway play in 1967 called A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. The show centers around the toll that taking care of a severely disabled daughter - a girl with cerebral palsy so bad she cannot even communicate - is taking on her parents. In one scene, the mother gives a despairing monologue, and at the end, there's a flash of lightning to show, just for an instant, her daughter skipping rope like any normal child. (You can imagine it being both scary and heartbreaking.)

Video Games

Web Comics

Western Animation

Real Life