Truth: Noun. That which most easily appeals to the fears, hopes, and prejudices of the hearer; in essence, a lie.
Lie: Noun. That which causes its utterer to be reviled; in essence, the truth.
Deceit: Noun. Example: A dog rolls on the carcass of a dead possum in order to deceive other animals regarding his identity as a dog (whereas) a man lolls in the scents of church in order to deceive himself regarding his identity as a thief, an adulterer, and a liar (the difference is that the dog does not first have to endure being bored by the possum).
— Thorax, 9 Chickweed Lane
Truth, lies, and deception. If only it were easier to tell them apart. Listed are multiple tropes that fall into one of the three categories. And The Shades of Fact offers insight into their fictional equivalents.
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Also see:
Tropes of Truth
Also see:
First, recognize honest intent, whether expressed as the plain truth or a technical falsehood.
- Awful Truth: Something is true, but the truth is so bad that people keep it secret out of fear that other people will go mad.
- Bad Actor, Good Liar: A character makes for a very good liar or con artist despite being terrible at professional acting.
- Based on a True Story: A work which is, or claims to be, based upon something which really happened.
- Beware the Honest Ones: Shifty characters distrust an honest one.
- Bluff Worked Too Well: A character's lie works too well, causing unintended consequences.
- Blunt "No": Someone says "no" in a blunt tone as a response to a inquiry.
- Blunt "Yes": Someone says, "yes" in a blunt tone as a response to a yes-or-no question.
- Brutal Honesty: You'd expect a character to lie, but they just tell the truth.
- Card-Carrying Villain: A villain will not lie about his evil deeds.
- Cannot Tell a Lie: Someone is literally unable to lie.
- Cassandra Bystander: Someone confesses a truth, but relies on Refuge in Audacity so it won't be believed.
- Cassandra Truth: Someone tells the truth, but nobody believes them.
- Contagious Cassandra Truth: Somebody cannot get anybody to believe something they know is true, but they manage to convince one, but nobody else.
- Deception Non-Compliance: Somebody has to deceive, but they deliberately mess it up.
- A Dog Ate My Homework: A student doesn't bring their homework and claims that a dog ate it, which is either a lie or a Cassandra Truth.
- Dreaming the Truth: Somebody has a dream that makes them realise the truth.
- Eye Contact as Proof: Having someone look you in the eyes while making a claim is the best way to verify the claim.
- False Reassurance: Someone tells the absolute truth, but makes it seem like they mean something else.
- Food Interrogation: Food is used as a way to get the truth in an interrogation.
- Helpful Hallucination: A hallucinated person tells the truth and helps an actual character.
- Heroic Vow: A hero makes a promise they will not break.
- Honest Axe: Telling the truth earns a reward.
- Honesty Aesop: An Aesop about telling the truth.
- Honesty Is the Best Policy: Somebody tells the truth, because they feel they do not need to lie.
- I Gave My Word: Dialogue which basically means "I promised to do or not do something, you can't make me do otherwise", which often turns out to be irrational.
- In Vino Veritas: Telling the truth while drunk.
- It Was Here, I Swear!: Someone finds something, goes to show somebody else, but by the time they come to see, it's gone.
- Lie Detector: Something which can tell whether or not somebody is lying.
- Literal Metaphor: The simple truth, mistaken for a metaphor. Often a part of the Prophecy Twist.
- Lying Heroes, Honest Villains: A good guy lies, while a villain tells the truth.
- No Man of Woman Born: Some sort of prophecy or something says that something cannot happen until something else, which sounds impossible but somehow isn't, does.
- No More Lies: A lie that was useful no longer is.
- No Poker Face: A character can not hide their emotions, including when they're bluffing.
- Not Even Bothering with an Excuse: Somebody doesn't want to help a character but doesn't make an excuse.
- "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: Immediately after the work gives information that sounds like made-up nonsense, the characters or the creator say something to the effect of "We didn't make that detail up, it's actually accurate".
- Personalized Pledge: "I swear upon [something personal]."
- Prophecy Twist: A prophecy comes true, but not in the expected way.
- Recorded Spliced Conversation: Trying to pretend that a recording of another person is the actual person speaking.
- So Crazy, It Must Be True: Believing a true, but really weird-sounding, story.
- Supernaturally-Validated Trans Person: Supernatural happenings confirm that a transgender person is the gender they identify with, beyond all reasonable doubt.
- Throwing Out the Script: Casting aside your pre-prepared speech to say what you're really thinking.
- Truth in Television: A trope which happens in real life.
- Truth Serums: A drug which makes the taker be honest.
- Truth-Telling Session: Many truths being confessed during a crowd argument.
- Villains Never Lie: A villain tells the truth in a manipulative way.
- Villain Reveals the Secret: Sometimes, they're telling the truth and it usually isn't good for our heroes.
- Will Not Tell a Lie: Someone who technically can lie, but chooses not to.
Tropes of Deception
Second, learn the myriad shades of deception, purely for self-defense, of course.
- 2 + Torture = 5: The villain tortures the hero by trying to make them believe something that's obviously not true.
- Bathroom Search Excuse: Lying about looking for the bathroom.
- The Beard: A fake spouse or significant other, to hide one's actual marital status or love life.
- Bluffing the Advance Scout: Aliens want to do something bad to Earth, but the humans trick the aliens' advance scouts into thinking all humans are too nasty to deal with.
- Bluffing the Authorities: An authority figure thinks someone did something suspicious, but the suspected character comes up with an innocent explanation.
- Bluff the Eavesdropper: Somebody discovers they are being watched and starts acting to trick the watcher.
- Bluff the Impostor: Tricking an impostor into exposing themselves by making an obvious mistake.
- Bluffing the Murderer: Somebody is pretty sure who dunnit, but doesn't know for sure so tries to trick the suspect into confessing.
- Booked Full of Mooks: A character in a public space discovers that all the bystanders around them are actually another character's employees or co-conspirators.
- Cassandra Gambit: Invoking a Cassandra Truth to hide something.
- Confess to a Lesser Crime: When the authorities come asking, the perpetrator will happily confess to being guilty of a minor indiscretion, in order to keep the more serious crime(s) from being brought up.
- Confusing Multiple Negatives: Multiple negatives deliberately used to throw the listener off-track.
- Confronting Your Imposter: An impersonator is exposed by the person they're impersonating.
- Consummate Liar: "Looks are only skin-deep," "The Earth is doomed," "No one who has drunk my tonic has ever died" — all carefully selected truths, intended to deceive, the hallmark of advertisers and politicians. Expect anyone unable to lie whether due to magic, Applied Phlebotinum, or just being a Manipulative Bastard type, to be good at this.
- The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much: When someone in authority claims a suspicious death is due to an accident, suicide, or natural causes.
- Cover Identity Anomaly: Missing some basic piece of information about someone you're pretending to be, often forcing you to make up something on the spot.
- Crocodile Tears: Pretending to cry to gain other people's sympathy.
- Dead Person Impersonation: Taking the identity of someone deceased.
- Deliberately Cute Child: Using a cute façade to get what one wants.
- Destination Ruse: A character lies to a subordinate (usually a parent to a child) about where they are going.
- Did Not Die That Way: A character finds out they have been lied to about a loved one's death.
- Dr. Psych Patient: An apparent authority figure such as a doctor is exposed as a mentally-unwell person adopting the role.
- Embarrassing Cover Up: Where the cover story goes into territory that makes the questioner regret asking.
- Fake Alibi: A suspect claims to have an alibi, witnesses confirm, yet the suspect is actually guilty.
- Fake Orgasm: A character simulates a sexual climax (or confesses this fact) to show that a sexual encounter/relationship is unsatisfying.
- Fake Period Excuse: Pretending to menstruate.
- Fake Pregnancy: A character pretends to be pregnant.
- Fake Relationship: Two characters pretend to be in a romantic relationship.
- Fake Texting: Someone pretends to be texting or checking social media on their phone.
- Faked Gift Acceptance: Pretending to accept a gift but then destroying it or throwing it away when no one's watching.
- False Cause: Correlation does not imply causation, but here that is ignored.
- False Prophet: Someone who lies using religion for personal gain.
- Fiction As Coverup: Hiding the truth in plain sight by calling it fictional.
- Forged Message: Writing a message but making it look like someone else wrote it.
- Gaslighting: Using deceit to intentionally convince someone that they are insane.
- Gas Leak Cover-Up: A simple, dull, believable excuse for something that is none of those.
- Gideon Ploy: Tricking your enemies into believing you have more people on your side than you do
- Girlfriend in Canada: Pretending to be in a long-distance relationship. Has a chance to be a real long-distance relationship despite others accusing otherwise.
- Identity Impersonator: A ruse to protect a character's Secret Identity by showing both character's identities in the same place together at the same time.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: Tricking a suspect into revealing something only they would know.
- Infraction Distraction: When someone confesses to or commits a small crime in order to cover for a bigger one.
- Intentional Heartbreaker: A character pretends to love someone, only to dump them later.
- Insidious Rumor Mill: A character lies or manipulates the friends, family members, and colleagues they share with someone they're in conflict with to turn their backs on that person.
- I Surrender, Suckers: A character pretends to surrender but attacks once the opponent lowers his guard. If this is done by a soldier, it is called "Perfidy" and is a war crime.
- Language Fluency Denial: Pretending not to speak a language fluently when one in fact can.
- Liar's Paradox: A stock technique where a paradox is formed from statements where truth and lie simultaneously occur.
- Looking Busy: Pretending to be occupied.
- Manipulative Bastard: The mastermind of deception.
- Manipulative Editing: Editing a video out of context to make it look like something else.
- Metaphorically True: A statement that is technically true, but extremely misleading without all the facts.
- Minion Manipulated into Villainy: The loyal minion learns that their helpful dark master who was there for them after their life fell apart was actually the one who engineered the tragedy.
- Minor with Fake I.D.: An underage character uses a forged identity document to buy alcohol or something they're otherwise too young to access.
- Move Along, Nothing to See Here: A Stock Phrase for authority figures wanting to prevent people from seeing something.
- Multiple Identity IDs: When someone has several fake IDs for several fake identities.
- Mysterious Backer: The characters are only being told as much as they need to know.
- New Era Speech: A villain who wants to take over gives a speech that is true, but is ambiguous enough to sound like they want to do something good when really they want to do something bad.
- Obfuscating Disability: Faking a disability to mislead onlookers or throw off suspicion.
- Obfuscating Insanity: Likewise a character could fake insanity...
- Obfuscating Stupidity: ...or a lack of intelligence.
- Of Corpse He's Alive: Pretending a corpse is a living person.
- Phoney Call: Pretending to make or accept a phone call.
- Playing Sick: Pretending to be ill to avoid responsibilities or consequences.
- Propaganda Hero: A hero is either embellished or made up out of whole cloth for propaganda purposes.
- Propaganda Machine: A program or agency that exists to promulgate an official (and often misleading) version of the truth.
- Propaganda Piece: Publications geared to influence the public first and foremost, with journalistic integrity as an afterthought or completely absent.
- Real Stitches for Fake Snitches: Deceptively making it look like a criminal has tattled on their employer or associates, especially when they could be hurt or killed for doing so.
- Recorded Spliced Conversation: Manipulating a recording to make a target think they're speaking to a real person.
- Reverse Psychology: Getting someone to do something by telling them to do the opposite.
- Sarcastic Confession: Telling the truth in a way that comes off as a lie. Often used to support the masquerade, this both deflects attention from the truth now and makes one less willing to accept the truth later.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: Using supernatural myths and Urban Legends to scare someone for whatever reason.
- Seamless Spontaneous Lie: A quick, incredibly detailed and not easily disproved lie.
- Sham Wedding: A fake wedding that's not legally valid.
- Sick Captive Scam: A captive fakes illness or injury to get the drop on his captor.
- Social Engineering: Convincing someone that you're someone else, or convincing someone to do something they don't want to do.
- Slumber Party Ploy: In order to do something or go somewhere they were prohibited from, kids lie to their parents that they are staying over at each other's houses.
- Staging the Eavesdrop: Intentionally saying something loudly with the explicit intent of getting someone to eavesdrop on it.
- Sure, Let's Go with That: Alice confronts Bob, who is obviously hiding something, and she concludes something wildly different than the secret Bob is actually sitting on, but Bob confesses to Alice's accusation only because he's covering up something darker or just embarrassing.
- Trojan Veggies: Tricking a child into eating vegetables by hiding them in a different food.
- Unusually Uninteresting Name: This innocent-sounding group are not a secret organisation of any sort. You won't even question their involvement or even notice their existence. The name is likely to be technically correct, though.
- Won't Get Fooled Again: In which the deception only works once.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: A guilty person acts innocent and manages to fool everyone.
- You Didn't Ask: When a character simply doesn't tell/mention something that's particularly large, hard to avoid in conversation, or just really should have been mentioned.
- You Said You Would Let Them Go: A villain lies to someone to get them to go along with a plan that will ultimately hurt those that they care about, or otherwise makes a promise that he has no intention of keeping. Often involves use of loopholes.
Tropes of Lies
Also see:
For outright fabrications that may never be discovered as such.
- Accidental Truth: Someone intends to lie, but their "lie" was actually true.
- Accidentally Real Fake Address: Someone makes up a false address (or similar) that happens to be a real one.
- Acquaintance Denial: A character pretends they don't know someone to avoid judgment or embarrassment.
- Acting Unnatural: People try to act innocent, but fail intensely.
- Amalgamated Individual: Multiple individual actions are thought to be committed by a single person.
- Amnesiac Liar: Somebody lies, gets amnesia, and then is told their lies because the person they lied to thinks they're true, and now the liar does too.
- Anachronistic Clue: An item that cannot come from the time period it supposedly came from, which is a clue.
- Backup Bluff: A character uses a lie as a last resort for when their plans fail.
- Bad Liar: Somebody cannot tell convincing lies.
- Becoming the Boast: Someone lies that they possess a skill, then is forced to actually gain that skill.
- Believing Their Own Lies: Somebody tells something that isn't true but they believe it.
- Big Secret: Someone lies during an investigation to hide a secret unrelated to the matter at hand.
- Blatant Lies: A lie that's obviously a lie, even if you don't know the details.
- Boyfriend Bluff: Somebody (usually a man) saves someone else (usually a woman) by pretending to be their boyfriend or similar.
- Brandishment Bluff: Pretending to have a weapon.
- Celebrity Lie: A character claims to be friends with a celebrity. Hilarity Ensues.
- Compulsive Liar: Someone feels a need to lie even when it's not the most reasonable thing to do.
- Confession Deferred: Someone lies until it benefits them to tell the truth.
- Contraception Deception: Lying about birth control during sex.
- Contrived Clumsiness: Somebody does something mean and pretends it was an accident.
- Crying Wolf: Lying so often that nobody believes you when you actually tell the truth.
- Cut Himself Shaving: Making up a lame excuse for injuries received from your secret life.
- Dark Secret: Someone has a negative secret, which almost always leads to lying.
- Deceptive Legacy: A child is lied to about their missing parent(s).
- Dog Got Sent to a Farm: Telling a child someone has gone somewhere else when they've really died.
- Double Speak: A euphemism.
- Dream Deception: A character lies to another that they're dreaming.
- Empty Promise: Someone makes a promise they cannot keep/don't believe.
- Engineered Heroics: A character fakes being a hero.
- Everybody Knew Already: Something you think is a secret, but really isn't.
- Exercise Excuse: A character lies about their strange behaviour by claiming they were exercising or dancing.
- Eyes Never Lie: Looking in somebody's eyes is a surefire way of telling whether or not they're lying.
- Fake Static: A character makes noises over the phone and pretends that it's a bad connection.
- Fake Wizardry: Magic is real...but you're not actually using it.
- Faking Amnesia: Just what it sounds like, a character pretends they have amnesia.
- False Widow: A woman who claims she has a dead husband when really she doesn't.
- "Fawlty Towers" Plot: Someone tells a lie, then other lies must be told to convince people the lie is true, but then it's revealed as false as it becomes too ridiculous.
- Friendship Denial: Somebody denies they're another character's friend, when they clearly are.
- Glamour: The Fair Folk pretend to be an old friend of the hero/es.
- God Guise: Pretending to be a god.
- God Never Said That: Lying about what the writers said about the work.
- Have I Mentioned I Am Sexually Active Today?: Bragging about something sexual that the bragger didn't really do.
- Hesitation Equals Dishonesty: If someone hesitates, they must be lying.
- I Am One of Those, Too: When you are caught in a lie by someone who just happens to have that ability / nationality for real.
- Invented Invalid: Someone lies about visiting a sick relative as an excuse to escape their duties.
- I Was Never Here: A character claims they never came.
- I Lied: A character outright admits to having previously lied.
- Implausible Deniability: Denying something when evidence to the contrary is right in front of the denier.
- Inflationary Dialogue: A lie involving a number, that changes every time the lie is told.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: When your lie offends the universe so badly that it exposes you on the spot.
- Internal Retcon: Pretending something happened a different way from reality, because the truth would be dangerous.
- Internal Reveal: The characters find something out that the audience already knew.
- Invented Individual: Somebody makes someone up and eventually has to give up the made-up person by "killing" them or in some other way.
- Invention Pretension: Someone pretends they invented something which has already been invented.
- It's for a Book: Claiming that a dodgy question is asked because you are writing a book, which is usually a lie.
- Keeping Secrets Sucks: Because it involves lying a whole lot.
- Language of Truth: A language that cannot be lied in.
- Let Them Die Happy: Lying that a dying character will be OK in order to let them be happy before they die.
- Liar Revealed: The protagonists learn that somebody else has been lying.
- Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: Using statistics to lie.
- Lies to Children: An analogy told to a kid is essentially a lie because they take it too literally.
- Literal Money Metaphor: A person thinks they were promised money, when really it was something else.
- Living Lie Detector: Having the ability to detect lies.
- Lying Creator: Something a creator says about a work turns out not to be true.
- Lying Finger Cross: Someone crosses their fingers while making a promise they don't plan on keeping.
- Lying Heroes, Honest Villains: A good guy lies, while a villain tells the truth.
- Lying to Protect Your Feelings: Lying to avoid making the person being lied to sad/angry.
- Lying to the Perp: A detective lies to a suspected perpetrator in order to get them to make a mistake.
- Maintain the Lie: Someone lies about their life and their friends have to help them carry it on.
- Malicious Slander: Somebody intentionally slanders the protagonist.
- Memory Gambit: Making yourself believe your lies just to regain memory after everyone else starts believing them.
- Metaphorically True: A "lie" that is true if you make it a metaphor.
- Miles Gloriosus: Badass in their boasting, but a coward when faced with real danger.
- Mock Millionaire: Pretending to be rich or powerful.
- Motivational Lie: Somebody tells a lie to motivate another person.
- The Münchausen: Someone who goes on and on about their unlikely adventures, either because they're lying, insane or even telling the truth.
- Münchausen Syndrome: Faking illness for attention as part of a psychological condition.
- Narrative Backpedaling: The narrative tells a story, then admits it didn't happen.
- No True Scotsman: Saying that if somebody is an X, they can't have been/done Y.
- The Oldest Tricks in the Book: A list of old excuses.
- Obstructive Vigilantism: Lying to the cops for the greater good. Or not.
- Obviously Fake Signature: A blatant forgery of a signature.
- Obviously Not Fine: A character claims to be fine when anyone can see that they're not.
- Open Secret: When everyone acts like something is supposed to be a secret, but everybody knows about it anyway.
- Phony Veteran: Lying about being in the military.
- Photos Lie: A photo doesn't show what happened before or after it was taken, leading to some lies.
- Pinocchio Nose: Someone always does one particular thing when they lie.
- Plagiarism in Fiction: Taking someone else's work and saying it's yours.
- Playing Up the Stereotype: Pretending to have stereotypical qualities of your group.
- The Power of Legacy: Lying about what somebody's last words were.
- Quote Mine: Lying that somebody said something they didn't by taking bits of what they did say out of context.
- Recruiters Always Lie: The recruiter lies to the recruit.
- Secretly Wealthy: Pretending not to be rich.
- Self-Proclaimed Liar: Someone outright says they're lying.
- The Shadow Knows: An invisible character casts a shadow, or a shapeshifter's shadow looks like their true form.
- Sham Supernatural: Someone pretends to be a supernatural creature that they aren't.
- Snowball Lie: A lie that spirals out of control, and other characters join in.
- Stereo Fibbing: More than one character lies at once, about the same thing but often different lies.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Somebody denies doing something very specific.
- That Liar Lies: Accusing someone of lying.
- Tricked to Death: A lie that results in death.
- Twisting the Words: Turning an innocuous statement into something that sounds more incriminating.
- Two-Faced Aside: A character lies, then whispers or mouths the truth.
- Unreliable Expositor: Someone gives exposition, but they're lying or ignorant or both.
- Unreliable Narrator: The narrator lies or exaggerates.
- Unreliable Voiceover: A Flash Back shows the truth, but the voiceover is lying.
- Urban Legend Love Life: Someone's reputation as The Casanova or someone who Really Gets Around is actually made up.
- We Do Not Know Each Other: Two or more characters pretend to be strangers.
- We Were Rehearsing a Play: One or more characters pretend they were acting.
- Wrote a Good Fake Story: A character lies about writing a story as a cover for some other activity, then gets too involved in the non-existent story and wants to make it real.
- Wild Card Excuse: Somebody uses the same lie as an excuse for everything.
- You Can Always Tell a Liar: A "tell", such as in poker.
- You Won't Feel a Thing!: Claiming that something won't be felt, which is usually a lie.
