Metaphorically True: Difference between revisions

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDCO_p9PUVA Minor smoke damage/This car is HOT!!!] {{spoiler|The car's on ''fire''.}}

 

* Everything said by Xelloss in ''[[Slayers]]'' is technically true in the manner in which he phrased it, though not always in the manner in which the listener chooses to hear it. The closest he comes to telling an actual lie is to deliberately mispronounce the name Bibble.

** For example, he introduces himself as 'Xellos, the mysterious priest!' After that statement, the 'mysterious' part is in no way questioned. As to 'priest'... well, he does indeed serve a god.

* In [[Agatha Christie]]'s ''[[Murder on the Orient Express]]'', everything {{spoiler|Princess Natalia Dragomiroff}} says to Hercule Poirot. S/he had to lie to throw him off the trail, but Honor dictated s/he couldn't do it outright. So s/he "merely" gave the nearest equivalent answer, like Mr. Whitehead became Mr. Snowpeak.

* ''[[Saw]]''

{{quote|'''Saavik:''' You lied.

'''Spock:''' I exaggerated. }}

{{quote|'''Spock:''' Mr. Scott, I understand you are having difficulties with the warp drive? How much time do you require for repair?

'''Scotty:''' There's nothing wrong with the bloody th--

** This one, though, eventually comes back to bite Spock in the hinder:

{{quote|'''Kirk:''' I want the names of the conspirators.

'''Spock:''' A lie?

''' {{spoiler|Valeris}}:''' ...A ''choice''. }}

== [[Literature]] ==

* ''[[Discworld]]'':

{{quote|"Sergeant Colon was lost in admiration. He'd seen people bluff on a bad hand, but he'd never seen anyone bluff with no cards."}}

* George Martin's ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'': "{{spoiler|The Hound}} is dead. -- {{spoiler|Sandor Clegane}} is at peace."

'''Garak:''' "''Especially'' the lies." }}

*** As it turns out in the relaunch novel ''A Stitch in Time'', they actually were almost all true. Kinda.

** In the [[Star Trek: The Original Series|original series]] episode "The ''Enterprise'' Incident", Spock explains to the Romulan Commander that the Vulcan reputation for being truthful is overblown. They'll lie just like anyone else if they have a (logical) reason to.

*** In one early episode of ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'', Tuvok tells Chakotay that he is always honest, to which Chakotay points out that he wasn't being honest when he pretended to be a Maquis in order to infiltrate Chakotay's ship. Tuvok then counters that he was being honest to his principles and within the defined parameters of his mission. Chakotay recognizes this as a load of crap.

** A straight in-story example in the old series. The Black Guardian tells Turlough that the Doctor is evil and must be stopped. When called out on it he claims he was not actually lying because "the Doctor's good is my evil".

** There has been a rumor going about that [[John Simm]] will return as [[The Master (trope)|The Master]]. While Simm has shown interest in playing the role again, and [[Steven Moffat]] has stated that ''maybe'' (emphasis on '''maybe''') The Master might return someday, Simm posted a recent tweet that he doesn't plan on playing Master anytime soon. It's unknown whether this means he turned the role down or he hasn't been offered it yet, though.

** The claims are true. This stuff has killed thousands of people in multiple high-profile incidents, and the petitions to ban dihydrogen monoxide are also nothing new. They've been circulating online since at least [[The Nineties]]. The TV show didn't originate this meme.

* Adam and Jimmie of ''[[The Man Show]]'' got dozens of women to sign a petition to end Women's Suffrage (the right to vote) by phrasing it to sound like they meant "suffering". Things like, "Women have been suffraging in this country for decades, and nobody's done anything to stop it!"

 

== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* ''[[In Nomine]]:'' Balseraphs take Dissonance (which is bad for any Celestial) when they're caught lying. One of the few ways to remove this Dissonance is for the Balseraph to get the person who noticed the variance from truth to believe it's true ... from a certain point of view.

 

* ''[[Othello]]'': Iago never actually tells a flat-out lie. Instead, he simply plays up everyone else's insecurities, creatively spotlights and phrases certain information, and lets them draw their own conclusions.

* ''[[Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (theatre)|Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street]]'': {{spoiler|Mrs. Lovett: "No, I never lied. Said she took a poison, she did. Never said that she died."}}

* People write books about such tricks and how to recognize them. ''How to Lie with Statistics'' by Darrell Huff. Okay, that was [[Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics|statistics]]. Let's step it up: ''How to Lie with Maps'' by Mark Monmonier.

* The U.S. Supreme Court had to settle an argument related to this in [[wikipedia:Bronston v. United States|Bronson v. United States]]; testimony that is "literally truthful but technically misleading" is not perjury. In their defense, the Court was somewhat dubious of sustaining a perjury prosecution on the basis of a possible misunderstanding. To provide further context, Bronston's testimony was only technically incomplete, but on its face only answered a specific part of the question, and the lawyer in question failed to ask an obvious follow-up question. "Q. Do you have any bank accounts in Swiss banks, Mr. Bronston?" "A. No, sir." "Q. Have you ever?" "A. The company had an account there for about six months, in Zurich." (Bronston had had a personal Swiss account as well previously, but note that the subject at hand was the ''company's'' bankruptcy.)

{{quote|I checked every citation in the entire article. Not one of them was wholly truthful. At best they were slippery equivocations, with the obvious meaning being a lie, and an alternate, hidden meaning, true but irrelevant, to provide an escape hatch should the lie be discovered.|'''James A. Donald''', ''Chomsky Lies''}}

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Truth and Lies]]

[[Category:Technically a Trope]]