"But you know the ties that bind us tight are lies!"
— Dr. Doofenshmirtz, Phineas and Ferb
People tell lies. That's a basic truth. Sometimes they're intricate, subtle, unravelable prevarications that are difficult to discern, while other times they're Blatant Lies that are so transparent they might as well be made of plastic wrap.
However, sometimes people see a lie for what it is, yet choose to accept it anyway.
In fact, often times whole groups of people will know that something is a lie, and choose to believe it anyway, or at least present it to others that they do. They will often all agree to Let Us Never Speak of This Again, once the story has been agreed to.
The reasons can vary. In a murder mystery, it could be that the person killed was an Asshole Victim and the killer had noble intentions of protecting another, thus allowing them to be Let Off by the Detective. It could be that they're working to protect others from harm from someone else's schemes. Generally, this isn't actively discussed. People simply choose to accept that the lie is more acceptable than the truth, and act as though they believe it, often compounding it with their own lies. Other times, a spouse might to choose to believe the lies of their partner who is cheating on them, either because they have children and a divorce would cause more problems, or because they are still in love with the cheating spouse and hope to salvage the marriage.
This can be problematic if they are accompanied by someone who Cannot Tell a Lie (which may result in the heavy use of Exact Words or the use of Sarcastic Confession), or the person can finally find it within themselves to lie knowing that the lie will cause less damage than the truth.
May be involved in Shrouded in Myth, as well as maintaining a Masquerade.
Compare Silent Scapegoat and Sure, Let's Go with That, for more on pretending to believe a lie.
Compare and contrast Maintain the Lie and Believing Their Own Lies, for something more slanted towards actually believing untruths.
See also The Power of Legacy, Cope by Pretending, Prefers the Illusion.
As controversial as this tends to be (and even as to whether or not it is in fact what happened), No Real Life Examples, Please!
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Fairy Tail: At the start of the Grand Magic Games arc, Jellal decides he and Erza can never be together until he has atoned for his crimes, so he backs out of his first kiss with her by saying he has a fiancée. Erza catches onto the lie after a moment of shock, but understands his resolve and respectfully accepts it.
Comic Books
- Watchmen: At the climax of the graphic novel, Ozymandias succeeds in faking an Alien Invasion of New York City as part of a Genghis Gambit to avert an impending nuclear war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The other Watchmen discovered his plan thirty-five minutes too late, and agree to maintain Ozy's ruse for the greater good... except for Rorschach, whose Black-and-White Insanity can't process the idea of murdering several million innocents to spare the entire population of Earth, and forces Dr. Manhattan to kill him.
Fan Works
- Adventures of a Line Hopper: Blue Box Bad establishes (and Something later shows) that during the summer of 1999, Buffy fakes the appearances of dangerous monsters so the Doctor would stay with her longer to solve the non-existent problems. The Doctor reveals to Buffy near the end of the year that he knows Buffy is making things up the whole time, but given the amount of effort she put into the fakeries, he doesn't have the heart to call her out.
- Danny Phantom: Stranded:
- Spectra accuses Valerie of this in Danny Phantom: Dressed, claiming that Valerie only stubbornly insisted Danny Phantom was a menace despite all evidence to the contrary because she wanted to believe it was true to convince herself that she wasn't being the real villain.
- This gets Played for Drama twice during Danny Phantom: Blackmailed:
- Stella divorced her first husband and married into the Bevier family (whose patriarch she cheated on her husband with) partly due to her mother's Toxic Family Influence and insistence that they were superior to her original family due to being Old Money and The Proud Elite. While she's already had to face that her mother was an Anti-Role Model and abusive Control Freak, she still desperately wants to believe that the Beviers aren't just as shallow and arrogant, that Jean-Luc absolutely loves her instead of seeing her as just another Trophy Wife, and that Colette isn't a Spoiled Brat and Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who doesn't care about Stella any more than her previous stepmothers.
- While Kwan knows Star doesn't want anything to do with him, he still tries to convince himself he's still got a shot with her in order to distract himself from his guilt over assisting Colette with her latest scheme. It takes Star giving him a vicious "The Reason You Suck" Speech about his cowardice for him to change his mind.
- Duran and Kiyohime's Omake Theater: Downplayed and Played for Laughs. When Natsuki catches Duran eating food out of the take-out food she'd brought home, she initially scolds him, but then, upon finding out it was the fortune cookie he'd eaten, says Duran was rescueing her from Shizuru's tendency to interpret the fortunes as an excuse to drag Natsuki to bed. Shizuru questions this, asking if Natsuki truly believes this. Natsuki says that she can believe it provided Duran doesn't give her a reason not to believe it. Duran, just happy he's not in trouble anymore, wags his tail in agreement.
- Marinette Dupain-Cheng's Spite Playlist: Remix: Although Alya starts investigating several of Lila's claims, she decides to stop and simply accept her insistence that Marinette and Ladybug are both Bitches in Sheep's Clothing. Why? Because that's easier than facing the notion that Marinette might have been right to warn her about trusting Lila, and that she might have ruined her relationships with her ex-bestie and former idol for no good reason at all.
- The Morrigan: The official story of Norea du Noc and Elan Ceres is that they were dangerous infiltrators who were heroically stopped by the Valkyries (who had actually gone rogue and attacked them unprovoked) before disappearing in a prison somewhere. Most people ignore that president Miorine hired new bodyguards named Norea and Elan Nemo very shortly after, because the original story is politically convenient and ties things up in a nice little bow with no loose ends. Guel Jeturk is none too happy with how common these kinds of convenient lies are, but reluctantly goes along with it.
Films — Live-Action
- From Hell: Abberline notices a small clue at the final murder site and realizes Mary Kelly was NOT Jack the Ripper's final victim as intended, but actually escaped with Prince Eddy's illegitimate child to raise as her own. Although he's fallen in love with Mary, Abberline tells Godley he has to let the royal conspiracy keep thinking she's dead to keep her safe, meaning he can never contact her again.
- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance gives the famous maxim: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
- The Rock: Towards the end, Goodspeed reveals to Mason that Womack was lying when he said he'd pardon Mason in exchange for helping stop Hummel, so he tells Womack that Mason died during the mission, allowing him to live his life without worrying about the FBI tracking him down, and Paxton seems to sense that Goodspeed is lying but goes along with it.
- Sudden Impact: When the other cops come along and conclude the now-deceased Mick was responsible for all the murders, Harry goes along with that despite knowing that Jennifer was the actual killer of all of his associates.
Literature
- In Murder on the Orient Express, Hercule Poirot ultimately proposes two solutions of who murdered an absolute Asshole Victim, the first one being that some unknown person committed the murder and subsequently left the train. While the other solution (Everybody Did It) is obviously correct, the final decision is to accept the first.
- Nineteen Eighty-Four: This is how the party secures their rule and controls the population. Civil servants are employed to rewrite the truth and believe their own lies.
Live-Action TV
- In the Blackadder Goes Forth episode "Goodbyeee", Captain Darling is sent to the front line by General Melchett; when he gets there, he tells Captain Blackadder that he volunteered for the front line because he "was tired of folding the General's pyjamas". Blackadder not only goes along with this story, he actually prompted Darling (his Sitcom Arch-Nemesis for the season) with the lie that Darling was there voluntarily to let his enemy save face with one of his last acts.
- In the Bones episode "Double Trouble in the Panhandle", Booth and Brennan go undercover at a circus in order to investigate the death of conjoined twins. The investigation uncovers that the twins died in an accident, but the entire circus helped cover it up, and thus they could face serious legal consequences once the cops get involved. In order to protect the rest of the circus, the strongman pleads guilty to the entire cover-up. Booth agrees to report that the strongman was the sole participant in the cover-up.
- The Brittas Empire: In "Biggles Tells a Lie", the staff chose to help Colin maintain a lie towards his daughter regarding him being a leisure centre manager when he is in fact just a Deputy Manager Wet. When Brittas gets word of the lie, everyone fears the worst, due to his hatred of lying. However, when said daughter not only praises Brittas, but tells him that it was his Dream which inspired her to work in a leisure centre, he willingly upholds the lie.
- Killing Eve: Konstantin, the man who handles Villanelle and her fellow Professional Killers Diego and Nadia, clearly doesn't buy Villanelle's contrived story of why her killing Diego was "self-defense", but he only shrugs it off and suggests she speak to Nadia before Nadia tells her own side of the story.
- Leverage:
- "The Bank Shot Job", the team is trying to bankrupt a corrupt judge who let a couple of killers loose. However, they get caught up in a bank robbery during their caper. Then it turns out the bank robbery were a father and son trying to get together enough money to pay the self-same murderous gang the judge had cut loose, after they'd kidnapped the wife/mother of the pair. Nate is shot in an accident. Hardison, posing as an FBI agent, fakes up security footage that shows the corrupt judge shooting Nate, and Parker and Eliot, who slip in disguised as EMTs, trade clothes with the sympathetic robbers, then tell a story to the cops about how the judge had gone mad and shot Nate in cold blood. The judge tries to get the bank manager to tell the sheriff what really happened, but the manager, knowing in part of the judge's corruption, and fed up that the judge can never remember his name, tells the sheriff that it went down exactly as Parker and Eliot had said.
- After Nate tricks an Irish loan shark into confessing to a series of crimes in front of a room full of cops, then sends the man packing, Tara suggests that the loan shark's money is now evidence and that it won't get back to the people it came from. The three cops all decide they weren't even there that night.
Donnelly: I don't know what you're talking about. I've been at the movies all night long.
McCann: Me and Johnny here had tickets to the game today.
- M*A*S*H:
- In "Hey, Doc", Frank attempts to drive a tank that was left at the camp to scare off a sniper, ending up in him driving over Potter's jeep, with Potter barely making it out in time. Potter angrily demands that Burns explains himself, when Hawkeye and BJ jump in, telling Potter that the tank somehow started by itself and Burns jumped in to save them all. Potter clearly doesn't believe a word of it, but accepts the explanation with a stern, "Uh huh", knowing that Hawk and BJ hate Frank too much to lie for him without good cause. They want Frank to lie on a supply sergeant's medical form so that he can take a boat home with smuggled goods instead of flying, and in return the supply sergeant will get them a necessary but hard to come by microscope. Margaret calls it "blackmail", but Burns submits.
- In one of the Christmas episodes, Hawkeye, BJ and Margaret desperately try to save a soldier's life on Christmas Day. They fail, but Hawkeye deliberately sets the clock (at that time a few minutes from midnight) to just after midnight so they can falsify the official date of death to December 26, thereby sparing his family from having to always associate Christmas with his death. Margaret objects at first on ethical grounds, but they all quickly agree it is for the best.
- Only Murders in the Building In "Lifeboat", the protagonists accuse the West Tower residents of conspiring to kill Professor Dudenoff, fraudulently cashing his pension checks, and pretending he's still alive so they can live in his rent-controlled apartments for cheap. They confess that Dudenoff actually committed suicide after a terminal diagnosis and that his last wish was for them all to keep up the ruse so that they could stay together and live cheaply. Rather than expose them and get them in trouble, Mabel records a podcast saying the investigation was a dead end and Dudenoff was still alive.
- Picket Fences: Deconstructed in one episode. A teen girl from the local high school was caught selling drugs. She'd bought them for personal use, decided she didn't care for them, and was selling off the rest to recoup her money. Unfortunately, this made her a drug dealer in the eyes of the law. John Littleton asked for a sentence of two years, saying she would get ten if it were a federal case. In fact, the feds agree, and get involved, intending to try the young woman in federal court and give her a ten year sentence to set an example that white people would be sentenced just as severely as black people. John Littleton, knowing the girl wasn't intending to be a drug dealer and didn't deserve to be in jail for a whole decade, states her confession was illegally obtained, then the cops join in saying they somehow "misplaced" the drugs that were the evidence, forcing the feds to drop the matter, and the girl is completely free to go. But Judge Bone shuts down any celebration of the matter, as he points out that the girl was, in fact, a drug dealer, and the only reason she was free is because Littleton, a black man himself, didn't believe that the federal sentence she would have gotten was fair to the circumstances, but would have been mandatory under federal guidelines. Bone says there's nothing to celebrate in the situation, and everyone is shamed into silence.
- Scrubs: JD and Eliot realize that since a man could tell the color of a set of pills, he did not actually have multiple sclerosis, and think he's scamming for drugs. Then they learn the truth, his daughter has MS, but she is not covered by his insurance and has none of her own. JD and Eliot agree that the man has MS and continue treatment.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation:
- In "Sins Of The Father", Worf comes to learn that his birth father, Mogh, was declared a traitor who allowed Romulans to attack a colony on Khitomer. However, when Worf confronts the Klingon High Council, he and the Enterprise discover proof that it was actually Ja'rod, father of Councilor Duras, behind it. Because the House of Duras has incredible influence within Klingon politics, civil war would most likely occur if the truth got out. Worf is instead convinced to take discommendation to keep the peace.
- In "The Most Toys", Data determines that the only logical course of action to stop Psychopathic Manchild Kivas Fajo is to kill him with a disruptor pistol (that Fajo had just used to murder a member of his crew). Data pulls the trigger, but is beamed out just before the weapon discharges. Chief O'Brien detects that the weapon was fired and deactivates it before Data rematerializes on the Enterprise. Riker asks Data about it, and Data says that something must have happened during transport. Riker looks like he doesn't believe it, but doesn't push the issue either.
- The Twilight Zone (1959): "The Purple Testament". After Lt. Fitzpatrick realizes that he can tell when people are going to die, and sees it in his own face, he is called back to headquarters for evaluation. The path leads through rough road that hasn't been de-mined yet. When his compatriots hear a loud boom, one of them suggests it was an explosion, until they all realize the implications, and agree that it was just thunder that they heard.
- The Wire:
- In season three, during the Mob War between Barksdale and Marlo Stanfield, Stringer Bell is killed by Omar and Brother Mouzone as revenge for his previous betrayal, made possible by Avon Barksdale setting him up to maintain honorable standing with Mouzone. The rumor starts spreading that it was Marlo's people who killed String, which riles up the soldiers on the Barksdale side. Avon is conflicted about this, but his new second in command, Slim Charles tell him to go with the story.
Slim Charles: Don't matter who did what to who at this point. Fact is, we went to war and now there ain't no goin' back. I mean, shit, it's what war is, you know? Once you in it, you in it. If it's a lie, then we fight on that lie. But we gotta fight.
- In season five, Detective Jimmy McNulty fakes a series of natural death of homeless men to be the work of a serial killer to get more funding and to pursue Marlo Stanfield. However, as the lie snowballs out of control, there is a stroke of luck when a mentally ill Copycat Killer strikes, and is caught pretty fast. The police command and mayor's office want to pin the whole series of murders (that they now know to be fake) on the copycat, which McNulty is unwilling to do. In the end, the copycat is charged with the one murder, and the "serial killer" disappears, letting everyone to draw the conclusion that the guilty man was caught, and Mayor Carcetti is able to ride the serial killer case to a succesful campaign to become the Governor of Maryland.
- In season three, during the Mob War between Barksdale and Marlo Stanfield, Stringer Bell is killed by Omar and Brother Mouzone as revenge for his previous betrayal, made possible by Avon Barksdale setting him up to maintain honorable standing with Mouzone. The rumor starts spreading that it was Marlo's people who killed String, which riles up the soldiers on the Barksdale side. Avon is conflicted about this, but his new second in command, Slim Charles tell him to go with the story.
Music
- Beast in Black: "Sweet True Lies"
has the protagonist telling his Love Interest to keep telling him more of her lies, because he likes the lies better than the truth that she's just stringing him along and using him.
Baby, baby tell me more of your lies
Say you want me for a lifetime
I believe you even when I know it's a lie
Love's so blind
Sweet true lies
Theatre
- EPIC: The Musical: Attempted in "Mutiny", with the opening verses of the song having Eurylochus practically beg Odysseus to claim that he did not sacrifice six of their remaining crew to Scylla in the previous song. The tone makes it clear that Eurylochus knows this would be a lie, but doesn't want to believe that his captain and brother-by-marriage wanted to get home that badly. It's ultimately defied because Odysseus can't bring himself to say anything in his defense.
Video Games
- Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits: Darc's team eventually discovers that Dilzweld has been crafting aritifical Deimos. Droguza is one of them, having been brainwashed into thinking he's the Sole Survivor of the Niente Tribe Trapped in Villainy when in reality he was an artificial infiltrator looking for the Stones. After the final battle with him, Droguza asks Darc if the The Reveal is true. In a final act of respect, Darc reinforces the fake backstory instead; acknowledging Droguza as a true Deimos so he can pass on peacefully.
- Black & White 2: One Sidequest has a villager accuse you of getting his daughter pregnant. Being an incorporeal deity, you definitely didn't, but you can choose either to track down the real father or to take credit and let the baby be raised as a heroic demigod.
- Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance: Near the end of the game, the Running Gag of Christo's ambiguous status as a demon is unraveled when Celestia threatens to send the superweapon Armageddon into the Netherworld to stop Void Dark. The other characters are now fully aware he's an angel, but choose to keep up his initial lie of being a demonic Overlord anyway so he can save face (and so they don't have to debate race-relations during a universal catastrophe).
- Dragon Quest VII: The concept of this game is going back in time to save lands from some terrible disaster, then returning to the present to see how things have developed in the intervening centuries. In the seventeenth such land (yes, this is a very long game) you encounter the town of Labres (original PS1 version) or Vogograd (3DS remake). During your time there, your party barely manage to stop the townspeople from making a huge mistake that would have destroyed the town. But when you return to the present, the modern-day townspeople have flipped the script and claim that their ancestors stopped the party from making the terrible mistake. Eventually the village children accidentally dig up a stone slab with the truth chiseled on it, but when you show this slab to the town mayor, he destroys it to stop the truth from getting out. The only consolation is that the children promise you that they'll remember and pass on the truth to their children.
- Zig-Zagged in Evan's Remains; Clover is lied to by Dysis about being his little sister all grown-up. Given his ability to tell when someone is lying to him, it's unknown whether or not he knew it was a lie and just played along to feel like he succeeded to cope with the fact that he already knew he failed to save what was left of his family, or genuinely believed her, remains unknown.
- Hades: In order to patch up relations between Hades and the Olympian Gods, Persephone tells the Olympians that she fell in love with Hades and willingly became his wife, not mentioning that she was kidnapped by Zeus and their marriage was an arranged one. She doesn't expect many of them to fully believe it, but those that know the truth realise that what really happened would seriously piss off Demeter if she found out about it, resulting in Divine Conflict that no-one wants, so all of them accept it without asking any awkward questions.
- The Last of Us: The very final scene of the story has Ellie reply to Joel's extremely suspicious promise that he's telling the truth about her not being needed by the Fireflies after all (when in reality they were planning to kill her in the hopes of finding out the source of her immunity to The Virus, and Joel slaughtered them to protect her) with a simple "Okay", with it being unclear whether she actually knows he's lying and is lying herself to save their relationship, or is choosing to trust him despite her misgivings. The sequel reveals that it was the latter, but she grew increasingly suspicious of the story as she matured and later investigated it for herself. When she obtains proof, and a confession from Joel, that he lied to her, she is devastated and their relationship never recovers.
- Vampire: The Masquerade — Parliament of Knives: If you choose to execute Archon Adeline, the Prince will praise you for heroically ferreting out and executing an imposter. Basically everyone knows this is total bullshit made up on the spot to protect you, but they're either so loyal to or shit-scared of the Prince (or both) that they go along with it.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 3: After rescuing Colony Lambda from Consul J, Taion goes to speak with the colony commander Isurd, an old friend of Taion. Taion had previously fought a mud-puppet of Isurd, made from Isurd's memories and most negative thoughts, who spoke about how Isurd resented Taion deep down for his part in the death of their shared friend Nimue. When the real Isurd (who had been unconscious while all that happened) asks Taion what the double had said, Taion brushes it off as nothing important. Isurd seems to accept this response, with the implication that he has a good idea of what really happened, which is why he soon gives Taion a much needed pep talk, saying both Isurd and Nimue were proud of the boy for his kindness.
Web Animation
- Kakyoin Waifu Connoisseur: When Darkness brings up that she heard of the show from a Community of Waifus, Kakyoin questions how he didn't hear of said community. Though when Dai asks if he wants a real answer or an answer that'll make him feel better, Kakyoin immediately picks the latter.
Web Comics
- Unsounded: Duane hides his decayed undead appearance with a visual glamour. Such spells usually don't work on people who know they're there, but when Sette befriends him, she allows the glamour to portray him to her as the man he was in life.
Web Original
- The Shortest Story: "Kalmar the Bloody" has a party of adventurers wordlessly agree to keep the Preferable Impersonator.
It didn't take our party long to realize Kalmar the Bloody had been replaced. His doppelganger spoke less and listened more. He was slow to anger and quick to apologize when he gave offence. He even stopped claiming every piece of treasure for the massive iron-bound chest his warhorse carted along behind it.
One night at the campfire, after the impostor had excused himself to his tent, our party shared a moment of silent eye contact over the crackling flames. A round of nods. A wordless pact.
We like the new Kalmar. He's easy to get along with. The only awkward part is ignoring the pounding coming from inside the locked chest.
Western Animation
- The Simpsons:
- In "Lisa the Iconoclast", Lisa spends the entire episode searching for evidence that Springfield's founder, Jebediah Springfield, allegedly a bold pioneer and inspiration to all, was in reality a heartless pirate who made up every legend about himself. The townspeople then treat her as a pariah for trying to slander a beloved historical figure. When given a chance to present her evidence without a shadow of a doubt, however, she takes back her stance, conceding that the story was more important than the man.
- In "The Principal and the Pauper, after it's revealed that Principal Skinner is actually a drifter named Armin Tamzarian that adopted the identity of the real Seymour Skinner, and leaves town when the real deal returns. However, at the end of the episode, the townspeople decide they like Armin over the real Skinner, and literally ride the latter out of town on a rail. Judge Snyder declares that this incident will not be allowed to be discussed under punishment of torture. Even though the creators have said this episode is not canonical, Armin's real identity has been mentioned in subsequent episodes. Also, when Armin returns to America, having taken the identity of Seymour Skinner after the latter went missing in action, he presents himself to Agnes Skinner as her son, despite bearing no resemblance to Seymour in looks, build, or age. Agnes still accepts him, with a strong implication that she understands the truth but chooses to fool herself.
"No, no, I understand. You hit the back button on the browser by accident. Happens all the time. Think nothing of it."
