Unreliable Narrator: Difference between revisions

[[File:unreliable_1014.png|link=Dresden Codak (Webcomic)|frame]]

{{quote|''"You just show that your first-person narrator was actually in an insane asylum and then OH MY GOD, did it actually happen? Who can say? Here, I can say. It didn't happen because your narrator was just no good. Listen. Never lend an unreliable narrator money."''|''[[Dinosaur Comics (Webcomic)|Dinosaur Comics]]'', "[http://www.qwantz.com/archive/001195.html Literary techniques comics: Unreliable Narrator]" [[Alt Text]]}}

*** The funniest part is how he tries to present himself as [[Accidental Pervert|an objective and respectful young man]]. [[UST|He's actually in love with]] [[Manic Pixie Dream Girl|all]] [[The Glasses Come Off|of]] [[Distracted Byby the Sexy|them.]] Whenever it comes up, his narration says nothing about it, or his narration goes completely off-topic while we watch what happens.

* In ''[[Ghost in Thethe Shell]]:[[Stand Alone Complex]]'', the episode ''Poker Face'' entirely takes place in a small shack at the side of some large event, where [[Cold Sniper]] Saito and some other police officers play poker during their break. When the other players ask him how he got so good at bluffing, he tells them the story how he met the Major while he was a mercenary sniper who killed most of her patrol during a UN mission in Mexico. Since both the plot and the [[Nested Story|story within the story]] are all about bluffing, it's entirely unclear if anything was true at all.

* Very well done in the ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro Nini]]'' manga-only arc ''Onisarashi-hen''. In the final chapter, it's revealed that the point-of-view character {{spoiler|is responsible for every murder in the story}}.

** The narrator in ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro Nini]]'' (or the camera, in the anime) is pretty much the queen of this trope. Pretty much anything the main character doesn't see with his own eyes is highly suspect, at best. Halfway in, and it's ''still'' unclear if the series is a genuine mystery or merely a massive [[Mind Screw]], since {{spoiler|Beatrice is narrating most of the third-person sections and writing the TIPS.}} This may only apply to what's happening on the game board, since {{spoiler|message bottles were found which depicted the events on the island of the first two episodes, but apparently didn't mention the metaworld segments.}}

* In the [[Death Note (Manga)|Death Note]] anime, Mikami himself, rather than an omniscient narrator, narrates his flashbacks. He thus has an unfavorable view of his mother's advice to stop fighting against the bullies, whereas the manga's narrator noted that she was motivated by genuine concern for his welfare that was largely lost on him.

* Ii-chan of [[Zaregoto (Light Novel)|Zaregoto]] forgets important details, frequently. He even neglects to tell the readers {{spoiler|how he disguised the second murder in The Kubishime Romanticist as a suicide.}}

* [[Word of God]] states that Delios of ''[[Three Hundred300]]'' is an [[Unreliable Narrator]]; all of the supposed [[Did Not Do the Research|inconsistencies with actual history]] are actually bare-faced ''lies'', with Delios stretching the truth about who did what and how many there were. This naturally justifies the comic's explicit use of [[Rule of Cool]] and [[Refuge in Audacity]].

* ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]''. Calvin's six year-old imagination has the tendency to run away with him, resulting in spectacular fantasy sequences featuring characters like [[Flash Gordon (Comiccomic Stripstrip)|Spaceman Spiff]], [[Superman|Stupendous Man]], and [[Film Noir|Tracer Bullet]]. Then, of course, there's Hobbes himself, Calvin's stuffed tiger to whom he attaches a personality. Hobbes is even drawn differently when other characters are in the panel, to reflect how they see him as just a toy.

* Done in ''[[Steelgrip Starkey andAnd The All -Purpose Power Tool]]'' via thought balloons and dialog from {{spoiler|Flynn "Flyin'" Ryan . Although he's secretly the tool's inventor and the mastermind behind [[Decoy Leader|Mr. Pilgrim]], his thoughts often read like he's unaware of the big picture. Done particularly egregiously when he and a cohort are making plans, and he still refers to Mr. Pilgrim in the third person.}}

* Elspeth of ''[[Luminosity (Fanfic)|Luminosity]]'' narrates the second book, and whenever under Allirea's power sees her as "not important". This leads to glossing over some important dialogue, with a little [[Unspoken Plan Guarantee]].

* This trope is a good way to explain away the historical inaccuracies in ''[[Three Hundred300]]''.

* Implied in ''[[Bunny and Thethe Bull]]''. Stephen, the main character, is retelling the story of a road trip from his perspective- vital pieces of information are left out or glossed over, not to mention the fact that he sees hallucinations in his house but doesn't realise they are not real until the end of the movie, so by consequence, neither does the audience

* ''[[The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Film)|The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari]]'' reveals in the end that the man who has been telling the story is in fact an inmate of an insane asylum, and the ''entire movie'' never happened; he just made it up based on the people around him.

* An early example of this occurred in [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s ''[[Stage Fright (Filmfilm)|Stage Fright]]'', which opens with a flashback narrated by one of the characters who is lying to another character to obtain their help.

* The plot of ''[[Hero (Filmfilm)|Hero]]'' consists of the same story being retold three times with major differences: {{spoiler|Nameless' BS story he told so that he could get an audience with the Emperor and have a shot at assassinating him, the Emperor finally calling Nameless on his BS and telling what he thinks really happened, and Nameless finally admitting what REALLY happened just before he tries to kill the Emperor.}}

* ''[[Aqua Teen Hunger Force (Animation)|Aqua Teen Hunger Force]] [[The Movie|Colon Movie Film for Theaters]]'': After the opening movie theater parody, the story supposedly begins millions of years ago, in 1492, at 3pm, in Egypt. Then a modern airplane flies by. It turns out this is a story Master Shake is telling Meatwad, and to make it worse, Meatwad is in the story. In fact, pretty much every character in this film is an Unreliable Narrator.

* ''[[The Fall (Filmfilm)|The Fall]]'' plays some fun games with this trope. It is a film of two levels, stories within stories - a girl in a hospital listens to stories told by a bedridden man, and we see her visualisations of the stories he tells. Trouble is, they don't share identical internal dictionaries. One great example is that he talks about an indian and his squaw, but the girl, who was friends with a Sikh, imagines a bearded subcontinental man in a turban. ''[[The Fall (Filmfilm)|The Fall]]'' also features a classic example of [[In -Universe]] [[Creator Breakdown]].

* ''[[Memento (Film)|Memento]]''. Lenny may be ''trying'' to report accurately, but his grasp on the real past is, to put it mildly, highly questionable.

* ''[[Monster a Go -Go!]]'' has the ultimate [[Unreliable Narrator]]. {{spoiler|Whaddaya mean there was no monster, beauzeau?}}

* ''[[Bubba HotepHo-Tep]]''. The stories Elvis and JFK share about themselves and how they ended up in a Texas nursing home are VERY speculative and unreliable.

* Jack Crabb ([[Dustin Hoffman]]), in ''[[Little Big Man (Film)|Little Big Man]]'', is quite likely one of these.

* While it didn't have an unreliable narrator itself, the 2007 ''[[Beowulf (Filmfilm)|Beowulf]]'' implied that the original poem was a false account of the events as told by Beowulf himself.

* ''[[Clue (Filmfilm)|Clue]]'' uses this to make the various [[Multiple Endings]] equally plausible, as the butler doing the majority of the exposition is variously {{spoiler|an FBI agent conducting a sting and/or Mr. Boddy himself}}.

* The movie ''[[Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron]]'' goes on great lengths to show that [[Humans Are Bastards]], that horses are enslaved by us, and that they should be free. Humans in the parts where the protagonist is broken in and forced to pull a train down hill are depicted in a negative manner while the parts where he's with humans that let him mostly do whatever he wants are portrayed positively. This movie is told from the point-of-view of a wild stallion who has had no contact with humans in his life, suddenly becoming captured by them.

* The [[Agatha Christie (Creator)|Agatha Christie]] novel ''[[The Murder of Roger Ackroyd]]'' has an infamous [[Unreliable Narrator]] who {{spoiler|turns out to ''be'' the murderer}}. Christie then does a good deal of back patting as {{spoiler|the narrator congratulates himself on hiding his own involvement. He cites specifically the scene of the body's discovery, where the text states "I did what little needed to be done," by which he meant stealing a key piece of evidence from the scene}}.

* [[Geoffrey Chaucer (Creator)|Chaucer]] used this technique in ''[[The Canterbury Tales (Literature)|The Canterbury Tales]]'' (the "Merchant's Tale", and, to a subtler extent, the General Prologue).

* The novel ''[[Lord Darcy (Literature)|Too Many Magicians]]'' does this brilliantly. When a major character is examining a crime scene in the very first scene in the story and notes that a trace wasn't left of the killer, the author doesn't mention that the novel is opening just a few seconds after the character committed the crime.

* This is the main trope of the Baron Munchausen stories, both in the original 18th century novel or in any of the various later pastiches. The [[Terry Gilliam (Creator)|Terry Gilliam]] film ''[[The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Film)|The Adventures of Baron Munchausen]]'' has the final twist that some of the outlandish things he claims are, apparently, true - or at the very least, the Turkish army ''did'' lift the siege of Vienna for some unknown reason connected to the Baron, which is good enough for the crowds who had been listening to him.

* Daniel Dafoe's fictional memoir ''[[Moll Flanders (Literature)|Moll Flanders]]'' is an early case of a narrator who is unreliable on more than one plane. Superficially, Moll puts herself in the best possible light no matter what, either by glossing over the enormousness of her crimes or by blaming the victims, but her story is also logically inconsistent and ahistorical. She leaves her purportedly well-loved children in Colchester in the 1640s - in other words, in a war zone - to traipse off to America on a whim. Her "older brother", with whom she inadvertently commits incest and has a child, must be younger than her if her mother's story is true. Despite living in London in the 1660s, she does not recall the Plague, the Dutch invasion, or the Great Fire.

* The novel ''[[John Dies Atat the End]]'' is mostly narrated by one protagonist, David, and the majority of the book involves David recounting unlikely supernatural adventures to a reporter. A small part of the book (involving important events that the narrator didn't witness firsthand) is instead told by David's best friend, John, and this portion has a suspiciously high occurrence of backflips, as well as a chase scene that John resolves by "stealing a nearby horse". As David points out early on, "If you know John, you'll take the details for what they're worth. Please also remember that, where John claims to have 'gotten up at three-thirty' to perform this investigation, it was far more likely he was still up and somewhat drunk from the night before."

* Oswald Bastable, or at least [[E. Nesbit]]'s version of him.

* ''[[One Flew Over the CuckoosCuckoo's Nest]]''. The story is told by Chief Bromden, who is schizophrenic. While the story is supposed to be true, he adds in plenty of insane, paranoid delusions. On the other hand, any student of American History with an understanding of the issues involved in the history of the Plains Indian tribes can see just how accurate the alleged delusions of Chief Bromden are.

* In the ''[[Ciaphas Cain]]'' novels, set in the ''[[Warhammer 40 K40000]]'' universe, the story is told from the point of view of Ciaphas Cain - and annotated by the Inquisitor, Amberley Vail, who constantly reminds the reader in her footnotes that Ciaphas is an habitual liar, and there are too many holes that can't be backed up by other sources for this story to be taken at face value. There's also some unreliability in the way Cain downplays all of his acts of heroism, saying that they were all just to protect his own skin or his reputation, but Amberly steps in every once in a while to point out that Cain gives himself far too little credit.

* In ''[[Wuthering Heights (Literaturenovel)|Wuthering Heights]]'', there are two main narrators. Mr Lockwood who is telling us the story, and Ellen Dean who is telling him about Heathcliff. Lockwood is shown very early on to be unreliable as he describes Heathcliff as a "capital fellow", only to later learn that that is really not the case. Ellen 'Nelly' Dean herself is full of biased opinions, and is very judgemental of most of the other characters. Since pretty much every revelation in the book is made whilst Nelly is telling Lockwood the history of the Heights, it is a possibility that she just made the whole thing up. She is also unreliable as a character, as she happily spills all of the people who confided in her's personal details and secrets to a complete stranger with little hesitation.

* Nicely done in an understated way in [[Dorothy L. Sayers]]' ''The Documents in the Case''. A series of letters written by each of the main characters to various other people are collected. Each person describes incidents from their point of view, ''each'' person showing themselves as paragons of virtue surrounded by fallible fools.

* Holden from ''[[The Catcher in The Rye (Literature)|The Catcher in The Rye]]'' is a good example. The novel is about his downward spiral into emotional trauma, but he doesn't tell the reader this and lies about how he was feeling by making excuses of "just didn't feel like it," or the like.

* ''[[Don Quixote (Literature)|Don Quixote]]'' is one [[Unreliable Narrator]] telling a story received from another [[Unreliable Narrator]] to the point that you simply can't know if any of the story really ever happened or is all just fantasy. It gets even funnier when you take into account the non-canon "sequel" that was written by a different author before Cervantes finished the second part.

* Wilkie Collins, the narrator of [[Dan Simmons]]' ''[[Drood (Literaturenovel)|Drood]]'', happens to be addicted to laudanum. {{spoiler|Not to mention that Charles Dickens [[Xanatos Gambit|mesmerizes him]] a few pages in and never gets around to unmesmerizing him. [[Unwitting Pawn|Oops!]]}}

* [[HPH.P. Lovecraft|H. P. Lovecraft's]] stories are usually narrated from a first-person point of view by said stories' main characters. The unreliability of the narrators may range from becoming increasingly maddened as the narration progresses to seemingly sane persons questioning their own sanity and the quality of their recollections as they recall a horrific experience they lived through. Lovecraft also had a penchant for having some of his stories' narrators narrating from mental asylums. In ''The Temple'', the narrator is a German submarine commander in [[World War I]], who steadfastly refuses to believe in anything supernatural, and instead he's sure that he went insane and became an [[Unreliable Narrator]].

* ''Dom Casmurro'', from [[Machado De Assis (Creator)|Machado Dede Assis]], a most famous realist Brazilian writer, has an interesting case. For a long time it was considered that the protagonist, who's the narrator, was simply and clearly cheated on by his wife, and that he himself as a character was completely just in his actions. Only long after his death it has become common knowledge (among professional critics at least) that the fact is, not only is Dr. Bento, the protagonist, in possession of a failing memory (he commits many continuity errors, AND lets it slip a few times as he complains about his memory), but is also a lawyer (no further explanation needed, really... but) and he's paranoid. Those all add up for a really unreliable narrator who struggles to remember simple facts, sees things that aren't really there AND wants the reader's approval.

* Apparently [[Douglas Adams]] retconned the divergences between the book, radio show, TV show, stage play, etc. of ''[[The HitchhikersHitchhiker's Guide to Thethe Galaxy]]'' by explaining that the source of the accounts was Zaphod Beeblebrox, about as unreliable as a narrator can get, who never remembered the story the same way twice.

** Also, one of the first things he says is how nonjudgmental he is. Followed by about 200 pages in which he leaves pretty much no other character unjudged. Cleverly mocked in ''[[Hark! aA Vagrant]]'' [http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=259 here (7th strip down)].

* The teen series ''[[Drama Series (Literature)|DRAMA!]]'' provides a subtle example. The narrator, Bryan, never outright lies to the audience, but he clearly interprets events based on his own preconceptions. For example, he goes out of his way to tell the readers what a jerk Eric Whitman is. Over the course of the series, it becomes obvious that Eric is actually an incredibly nice guy, almost to the point of being a [[Canon Sue]]. {{spoiler|What's interesting is that this highlights Bryan's emotional growth. [[Character Development|By the end of the series, he admits that he was being unfair.]]}}

* [[PGP. WodehouseG. (Creator)Wodehouse|PG Wodehouse]] once collected story ideas and kept getting ones that were simply too absurd to be used. Then he had the brilliant idea of putting them all in the mouth of Mr. Mulliner, a fisherman spinning yarns at his local pub, who wouldn't be believed anyway.

* Within the context of the novel, Bram Stoker's ''[[Dracula (Literaturenovel)|Dracula]]'' exists as a [[Scrapbook Story|series of ''transcriptions'' of letters and newspaper clippings]] about the [[Character Title|eponymous vampire]]; about midway through the novel, [[Dracula]] destroys the originals by tossing them into a fireplace in order to discredit the protagonists should they ever wish to make their story public. The transcriptions are kept by Mina Harker, a trained secretary, who foresees the usefulness in keeping backups. However, Mina herself undergoes some pretty severe trauma throughout the course of the novel; apart from the whole vampire-hunting thing, her best friend is turned by Dracula (and then [[Staking the Loved One|staked by her friends]]), and she [[Vampire Refugee|very narrowly escapes]] being ''turned into a vampire herself'', which [[Through the Eyes of Madness|brings her mental state and her reliability as a recordkeeper into question.]]

* In Megan Whalen Turner's ''[[The QueensQueen's Thief|The Thief]],'' the narrator, Gen, tells the story in such a way that the reader assumes he is an ignorant, dirt-poor, none-too-bright street thief being forced to help the other characters steal a precious artifact. Only at the end does it become clear that though Gen has never actually lied in his telling of the story, certain omissions and misdirections have allowed him to obscure the fact that {{spoiler|he is a queen's cousin, a hereditary master thief, and the [[Chessmaster|highly intelligent orchestrator of everything that has occurred in the story thus far]].}}

* ''[[The Hobbit (Literaturenovel)|The Hobbit]]'' has a somewhat odd example of this. In the first edition, Gollum bets his Ring in the riddle game with Bilbo. After [[JRRJ. R. R. Tolkien (Creator)|JRR Tolkien]] decided to [[Canon Welding|set it in Middle-earth]] and write ''[[The Lord of the Rings (Literature)|The Lord of the Rings]]'' as a sequel, this didn't fit with the concept of the Ring. So for the second edition of ''The Hobbit'', he [[Retcon|RetConed]] the riddle game part of the story was changed to the "true" version of events. His explanation for the first edition? Bilbo was lying to legitimize his ownership of the Ring! He even obliquely apologizes for that in ''The Fellowship of the Ring'', at the Council of Elrond.

* One of the central conceits of [[Isaac Asimov (Creator)|Isaac Asimov]]'s "Azazel" short stories is that they're being told to an [[Author Avatar]] of Asimov by an Unreliable Narrator who may or may not just be making them up entirely.

* One potential reading of ''[[Robinson Crusoe (Literature)|Robinson Crusoe]]'' is that the [[Unfortunate Implications]] of the Manservant Friday are the result of the unreliable narrator. This may just be the literary equivalent of [[Wild Mass Guessing]], however.

* ''[[The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Literature)|The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]'': One of the most famous unreliable narrators ever [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|breaks the fourth wall]] [[Lampshade Hanging|and hangs a lampshade on it]] in the very first paragraph.

{{quote| "You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of ''[[The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Literature)|The Adventures of Tom Sawyer]]''; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. [[Mark Twain]], and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly -- Tom's Aunt Polly, she is -- and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before."}}

* [[Franz Kafka|Kafka]]. Due to his famous style, he's able to directly contradict himself within the same ''sentence'', AND make it so subtle that a casual or superficial reader will scarcely notice. ''[[The Metamorphosis (Literature)|The Metamorphosis]]'' and ''The Judgment'' stand out in this respect.

* [[CSC. LewisS. (Creator)Lewis|CS Lewis]]'s ''[[The Screwtape Letters]]''. The book is an [[Epistolary Novel]] made up of letters written by a ''demon'', so of course he's more than willing to twist the truth to his own ends.

* ''[[I Lucifer]]'' can likely claim having one of if not ''the'' most unreliable narrator a person could hope to find in Lucifer himself. Well, [[The Bible (Literature)|The Bible]] was admittedly ''one-sided''.

* In the fourth book of ''[[Gulliver's Travels (Literature)|Gullivers Travels]]'' our protagonist tells us how wonderful and enlightened the horse creatures he met are, but reveals a number of facts about them with unfortunate implications. They are dispassionate and clinical, showing little affection towards their children (who are passed off to others who cannot conceive if this is more efficient), are repulsed by the concept of creativity (they believe words are only for conveying information) and have total disgust for the primitive, bestial Yahoos with which they share their land, and routinely discuss the possibility of exterminating them. They cast out Gulliver for his resemblence to the Yahoos but he remains totally in awe of them, cannot stand to even look at his family for the same reason and spends his time talking to horses. His total misanthropy at the end suggests he may not be a reliable commentator.

* ''Notes from the Underground'' by [[Fyodor Dostoevsky]] is one of the first modern uses of the unreliable narrator, though it's not the [[Trope Maker]] since ''[[Arabian Nights (Literature)|Arabian Nights]]'' and ''[[The Canterbury Tales (Literature)|The Canterbury Tales]]'' employed it long before.

* The Time Traveller in ''[[The Time Machine]]'' by [[HGH. G. Wells]] forms various hypotheses about the nature of the Eloi as the story progresses. Also, due to the novel's [[Framing Device]], the narrator's spellings of the few samples of Eloi language that readers get are likely poor reflections of the actual phonology, as neither the Time Traveller nor the outer story's narrator is a linguist by profession.

* Zoe Heller's ''What Was She Thinking?'' (filmed as ''Notes on a Scandal''): Barbara purports to be a cool, unbiased narrator of her friend Sheba's disastrous affair with a fifteen-year-old boy. In fact, {{spoiler|she's a [[Psycho Lesbian]] [[Stalker Withwith a Crush]] who's blatantly using the upheaval in Sheba's life to isolate and control her.}}

* In [[CSC. LewisS. (Creator)Lewis|CS Lewis]]'s ''[[Till We Have Faces]]'', at the start of the second part Orual reveals that the first half of the book was not an accurate version of what happened, but she does not have the time to revise the whole book, so she merely continues forward, explaining how she learned she was wrong.

* ''[[Count and Countess (Literature)|Count and Countess]]''. As an [[Epistolary Novel]], it technically has two narrators, but it's usually a good rule of thumb that Vlad will be lying or exaggerating while Elizabeth tells the honest truth without much emotional embellishment.

* Both in and out of universe in ''[[The Thirteenth Tale (Literature)|The Thirteenth Tale]]''. Vida has a reputation for lying to people about her life story, so much so that Margaret refuses to work on this project without independently verifiable sources. Also, certain details of Vida's story raise questions for the reader.

* [[Word of God]] says that in the ''[[Warrior Cats (Literature)|Warrior Cats]]'' novel ''The Last Hope'', {{spoiler|Dovewing hallucinated Firestar walking away from Tigerstar, and that he actually died from wounds received fight with him.}} Then again, [[Word of God]] from another of the authors states that {{spoiler|Firestar died from the smoke of a nearby tree that was struck by lightning}}, so this may actually be a case of unreliable God.

* Mandeville just comes out and says he is one in ''[[Dirge for Prester John (Literature)|Dirge for Prester John]]''.

* ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' started off occasionally playing with this, but has used the device increasingly often as it progressed. Unusually, it is not because Future Ted is lying ''per se'' (at least, not often - there are some instances of outright lies), but because of ordinary memory lapses (having a character named Blah Blah because he can't recall her name), subjective interpretation of ordinary events (showing Robin's forty-something date as elderly), or sanitizing the story for his children (using "I'm getting too old for this ''stuff''" instead of "shit".). The few times he tells us things that seem to defy reality (such as Lily and Marshall escaping their own party by jumping out the window, or having high school athletes and a ''[[Teen Wolf (Filmfilm)|Teen Wolf]]'' on a kindergarten basketball team), he [[Hand Wave|Hand Waves]] it by saying that's all he heard about it. In short, if there is a way to exploit the potential of an [[Unreliable Narrator]] for comedic purposes, it's been done on ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' at some point.

* Garak on ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' did this deliberately, especially in the episode ''The Wire'', because as a former secret agent of the Cardassian Obsidian Order he liked obfuscating his own past and never told a truth if a lie would suffice.

* The Dharma orientation films of ''[[Lost (TV)|Lost]]'' are narrated by Francois Chau's variably named character. The Swan film is located "behind ''The Turn of the Screw''" on the bookshelf, tipping the audience in advance that perhaps "Marvin Candle" is not to be trusted.

* ''[[Malcolm in Thethe Middle]]'' plays with the more humorous variant. For one example, Malcolm says the house next-door never seemed to have a permanent resident and they never figured out why. Cue montage of the boys playing all ''sorts'' of pranks on the previous residents, then cut to Malcolm saying "I don't know - I think it might be haunted."

* ''[[The X -Files]]''. In "The Unnatural" an alcoholic ex-cop tells Mulder how he encountered an alien posing as a famous Negro baseball player in [[Roswell That Ends Well|1947 Roswell]]; a story that even Mulder finds hard to believe. When Mulder tries fitting these facts into what he knows about the [[Government Conspiracy]], the cop basically tells him to just shut up and enjoy the tale.

* Played for laughs on ''[[Red Dwarf (TV)|Red Dwarf]]''. In the episode "Blue", the crew travel through an artificial reality version of Rimmer's journal, in which he depicts himself as a brave, handsome leader and the other crew members as reliant on him for various things which, in reality, they're better at than Rimmer.

* Most of the ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' episode ''Tall Tales'' is a [[Rashomon]] episode, with Sam and Dean telling their own version of the previous events to their [[Mentor]] Bobby - and often end up arguing over who's telling the story and the exact details of what occurred. It is eventuality revealed that a Trickster (a minor god of chaos) has been messing with their relationship in order to distract them from the case at hand, so most of the narrative consists of whichever brother is speaking portraying himself as a suave, dedicated professional searching earnestly for the truth, while painting the other in decidedly uncomplimentary colors. In Sam's narration, Dean appears as a slutty, gluttonous pig with no standards, while Dean portrays Sam as a prissy, supersensitive do-gooder with [[Camp Gay]] mannerisms. They end up working together to defeat the Trickster and sincerely apologizing for their behavior after closing the case.

* Completely subverted in ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]''. The narrator is actually the ''most'' reliable 'character', pointing out all of the various lies and misconceptions put forth by other characters, and even going so far as to offer extra background information on many occasions. (With the possible exception of the [["On the Next..."]] segments, but many of those end up being true anyway.)

* The ''[[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]]'' episode "Scratch 'n Sniff" features Crichton relaying the events of why he had to leave a planet to Pilot. At several points, Pilot refuses to believe Chrichton (even at one point suggesting that if Jool had lost as much fluid from her body as Crichton said, she'd be dead) and in the end it was left ambiguous how much of the story, if any, was true.

* Rael, the protagonist of the [[Genesis (Musicband)|Genesis]] [[Concept Album]] ''[[The Lamb Lies Down Onon Broadway]]'', is practically made of this trope.

* Dickensian parody ''[[Bleak Expectations (Radio)|Bleak Expectations]]'' uses this in the framing story for laughs:

* Much like the above ''Warhammer'' example, all of the material on ''[[Battle TechBattleTech]]'' is written from an in-universe perspective, always of some particular person or organization. This goes for everything, even the technical readouts on new 'Mechs and such. ComStar was the original viewpoint group, but it has since branched out to every faction. Some of the earlier books had significant errors (people doing things before their stated date of birth, using 'Mechs that hadn't been invented yet, etc), and the in-universe perspective allowed them to chalk it up to different perspectives. It also allowed them to [[Retcon]] things that they didn't want.

* Notably used as a [[Justified Trope|justification]] for adventure hooks in ''[[Unknown Armies (Tabletop Game)|Unknown Armies]]'', in the form of rumours that may or may not be true as the GM decides. One example: "Bigfoot has a social security number".

** The largest one: ''[[Demon: The Fallen (Tabletop Game)|Demon: The Fallen]]''. We ''never'' get the other viewpoint, and the viewpoint we do get is filtered through several millennia of resentment.

* ''[[Dragon Age II (Video Game)|Dragon Age II]]'' has an unreliable narrator in the form of Varric. On several occasions his interrogator points out his lies and he retells a section of the story. It doesn't help that in the game he tells Hawke that he is a compulsive liar. In fact, the game allows you to play through his exaggerations: for example, in the prologue, [[The Hero|Hawke]] and his/her sibling are fighting a group of [[The Virus|darkspawn]], and are able to one-shot Hurlocks left and right, even [[Curb Stomp Battle|curb-stomp an Ogre]], before he's called out on it and the player replays that section at level one. The second time, the gang is raiding a mansion, and Varric bursts in through the front door and is able to mow down all the guards [[Scarface]]-style with his [[Automatic Crossbow]].

* Common in [[Interactive Fiction]], where it can be used for comedy, as in [[Infocom]]'s ''[[The HitchhikersHitchhiker's Guide to Thethe Galaxy (Videovideo Gamegame)|The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'' ("[[The Computer Is a Lying Bastard|Okay, I was just joking, you really can't go west.]]"), or for suspense, as in Andrew Plotkin's ''[[Spider and Web]]'', (where {{spoiler|the entire first half of the game is a spy's "confession" under interrogation, and he's trying to mislead his interrogator}}).

* The main character of ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty (Video Game)|Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty]]'' is a rookie soldier who trained extensively in VR and has never been in actual combat before. {{spoiler|Only he isn't a rookie. He was a child soldier and highly prolific killer who served under Solidus Snake and has since spent his life acting as though it never happened and carefully suppressing memories of what he went through.}}

* ''[[The World Ends With You (Video Game)|The World Ends With You]]'' has {{spoiler|Hanekoma}} writing about the Fallen Angel throughout his secret reports--seriously, why would anyone teach Minamimoto the [[Dangerous Forbidden Technique]]?! {{spoiler|Well, of course Mr. H was the Fallen Angel all along}}.

* ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro Nini]]'' loves this trope in unhealthy ways, with an omniscient narrator who wants to [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|convince the protagonist to believe in witches]], and gleefully fictionalises whole conversations, ghost sightings, {{spoiler|characters, relationships and killings.}} Figuring out what 'really happened' from the thinnest of clues is the main draw of the game. It reaches such a point that in the second game, the author added in special text that will always be true. Unfortunately, in one arc, you might get four lines of that, while everything else could be pure crap.

* In ''[[Tales of Legendia (Video Game)|Tales of Legendia]]'', whenever the player sees Stella during a flashback from Senel's perspective, she seems to be a [[Purity Sue]]. However, Stella appears a lot less than...idealized whenever the flashbacks are from Shirley's perspective.

* ''[[Braid (Video Game)|Braid]]'' {{spoiler|...that is, if you're somehow able to figure out what the heck it's supposed to "really" be about.}}

* In ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (Videovideo Gamegame)|Knights of the Old Republic]]'', given that she gives you a lot of exposition, from background of the Mandalorian Wars to the whys of the Jedi Civil War to the reason the Exile was... [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|exiled]] by the Jedi Council, Kreia fits this description.

* ''[[Portal (Video Gameseries)|Portal]]'' and ''[[Portal 2 (Video Game)|Portal 2]]'' make use of this trope all over the friggin' place, largely because the characters who act as narrators during the games are (a) insane, (b) [[Blatant Lies|blatant liars]], (c) self-aggrandizing glory-seekers, (d) complete morons, or any combination of the above. Even the out-of-game promotional material surrounding Aperture Science, the company responsible for all of the insanity, is filled with apparent inaccuracies and material that's directly contradicted by revelations within ''Portal 2''.

* The near-entirety of ''[[CryofCry of Fear]]'' centers around and takes place {{spoiler|within Simon's book as a personification of himself,}} making you wonder what inspired the events inside or otherwise aside from the obvious causes, like {{spoiler|his insanity and being able to walk in it.}} Whatever caused them is (likely intentionally) left open to interpretation by those who play.

* Rucks in ''[[Bastion (Video Game)|Bastion]]'' doesn't lie, but his recounting of the game's backstory comes off as selective and self-justifying, including some whitewashing of aspects of Caelondia's history and culture.

* The early parts of ''[[A Profile (Visual Novel)|A Profile]]'' do not have entirely accurate narration because it is all from the point of view of Masayuki, who insists on seeing the best in situations and people, even if they're terrible. After some of his backstory is revealed, the point is largely dropped.

* Shikanosuke in ''[[Kira Kira (Visualvisual Novelnovel)|Kira Kira]]'' is sufficiently [[Kuudere]] that he won't admit what he's feeling, ''even to the reader.'' Despite him being the narrator it can fall to other characters to explain his emotions.

* Taichi in ''[[Cross ChannelCROSS†CHANNEL]]'' to some extent is an unreliable narrator. The first version of events about something he says or illustrates is rarely entirely correct and leaves out a great deal of necessary context. For example, he initially portrays {{spoiler|his earlier relationship with Touko}} as a mixture of an experiment and mere seduction, but later it turns out {{spoiler|he really was trying to have a relationship, but she turned out to be incredibly clingy and obsessed with him nearly to the point of being a yandere.}}

* The [[Nightmare Fuel]]-ish animated short arc "Twist, Twist, Twist" in ''[[Jack (Webcomicwebcomic)|Jack]]''. "I'm in hell because I love my wife... imagine that."

* ''[[What the Fu (Webcomicwebcomic)|What the Fu]]'' is narrated by the main character, who sometimes pads out the blind spots with imaginary scenes, which employ [[Up to Eleven|even broader stereotypes]] than the comic generally does.

* ''[[Schlock Mercenary (Webcomic)|Schlock Mercenary]]'' had one scene narrated via "[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2000-10-03 The Memoirs of Jud Shafter, K.F.D.A. Commando]" -- not quite in sync with panels. [[Brick Joke|Later]] this [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2009-05-05 bitten him in the butt] (sorry).

* The [[SCP Foundation (Wiki)|SCP Foundation]] website is made up largely of documents. Given the nature of the Foundation, much of it is deliberate misinformation. Also, there tends to be a lot of stuff with black marker over it and a large amount of [DATA EXPUNGED].

* A truly bizarre example in ''[[The Emperor's New Groove (Disney)|The Emperors New Groove]]'': at one point, the Emperor Kuzco breaks the fourth wall to argue with the narrator's version of events. The twist being that Kuzco ''is'' the narrator.

* One episode of ''[[Batman: theThe Animated Series]]'' focuses on 3 kids talking about different stories of who Batman is. Each one referencing a different Comic Book style for Batman.

** The first story in ''[[Batman Gotham Knight (Animation)|Batman: Gotham Knight]]'', "Have I Got a Story", also does this. Where each kid describes Batman differently from a different point in a single chase (in reverse order). The first describes a Shadow demon, second strikes a similar figure as Manbat, third is a robot. When Batman shows up he is, of course, human.

* In the second ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 (Animation)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' series, teasers and recaps are narrated by a character who plays a prominent role within the episode. In the episode "Rogue in the House, part 2", said duty falls upon Zog, a brain-damaged Triceraton which the turtles--taking advantage of the fact that Zog believes them to be Triceratons--recruited in the previous episode. Despite accurate visuals, Zog's narration states what he wrongly believes is actually happening--that the turtles are a Triceraton sabotage unit, the Foot are Federation.

* An odd subversion occurs in the Disney version of ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney film)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]''. Clopin, a clown who appears onscreen and speaks directly to the viewer, is our narrator. At first he seems to be totally detached from the story, merely recounting the tale as it unfolds and ignoring the fourth wall. Then during the festival sequence, Clopin shows up as a character in the narrative, MCing the Festival of Fools and remaining strictly within the fourth wall. Even more oddly, he's gone from wishing the best for Quasimodo in song to making a mockery of him by crowning him the ugliest person at the festival. Later in the film, Clopin appears again, this time as a murderous, seemingly insane criminal who stages a [[Joker Jury]] trial and tries to hang Quasimodo. Again, he stays within the fourth wall throughout this sequence. Finally, at the end of the movie, he's a narrator again, and finishes off the movie with a nice little song about how we should all see the good inside of people and Quasimodo is a great guy... this after Clopin tried to murder him earlier in the movie. So, is Clopin an actor playing contradictory roles within the story? Is he meant to represent multiple people? And considering that he tried to murder the protagonist yet ends the film by literally singing his praises, can we trust anything he's told us?

* The Narrator in the ''[[Earthworm Jim (Animationanimation)|Earthworm Jim]]'' animated series not only often has no idea what's actually happening, he's also, at least once, bullied into reading a scene transition to the benefit of one of the villains. "Hey, Narrator guy. Read this or I'll disperse your molecules." "Oh. Erm... later, Psy-Crow and Professor Monkey-For-A-Head have defeated the evil Queen." <Scene transition to this having already happened>.

* Anytime that ''[[South Park (Animation)|South Park]]'''s Eric Cartman tells a story, you can bet that he is lying, either intentionally, or because he's just that deluded.

** A recent episode featuring [[Kanye West (Music)|Kanye West]] being offended by a joke Jimmy made up had Cartman claim he had co-created the joke. We soon see he actually believes this when he recounts the opening scene with Jimmy being more enthusiastic about seeing him and Cartman coming up with the joke all by himself. Cartman then explains the lesson is that Jimmy is such a narcissist that he rewrites his memory to include himself in a bigger role (Or something like that).

* In ''[[The Simpsons (Animationanimation)|The Simpsons]]'', Homer Simpson is this in-universe. In one episode, he wanted to buy a bottle of expensive hair-regrowth formula. After the pharmacist tells him the price, Homer realizes he can't afford it, he breaks down crying and says, "Forget you, pal. Thanks for nothing," as he leaves. This is changed in his story to his friends to an angry, "Forget you, pal! Thanks for nuthin'!" as he "stormed" out.

* In one episode of ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Animation)|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'', [[Cloudcuckoolander|Pinkie Pie]] tells the Cutie Mark Crusaders how she got her cutie mark. It apparently involved her being raised by Amish-looking ''rock farmers'', and she closes her tale with "And that's how Equestria was made!" On top of that, Pinkie follows it up by offering to tell the CMC how she got her cutie mark.

* [[Greek Chorus|The Muses]] from ''[[Hercules (Disney film)|Hercules]]''.

* In ''[[Iron Man: Armored Adventures]]'', Pepper claims to have found information on AIM by [[Ceiling Cling|clinging to the ceiling]] listening onto her father talking the the FBI. She later breaks down and admits her father just forgot to log off his computer.

* ''[[American Dad (Animation)|American Dad]]'' put an interesting spin on this in "The American Dad After School Special". For the first half of the episode, Stan is shown becoming dangerously obese, apparently thanks to his family sabotaging his diet. Just before the ad break, we see that Stan is in fact dangerously '''under'''weight and the family's "sabotage" is their desperate attempts to help him. [[Fridge Brilliance|Since Stan is the viewpoint character...]]

* In ''[[King of the Hill (Animation)|King of the Hill]]'', certain parts of Cotton's recountings of his past are rather questionable.

* ''[[Thundercats 2011|Thundercats]]:'' Jaga's [[Opening Monologue|opening monologue]] is shot through with [[Half Truth|half truths]], neglecting to mention that Third Earth's "peace and prosperity" belongs solely to Thundera's upperclass Cats, or that the ruler's "just heart" does not extend to other species.