Believing Their Own Lies: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"I reject your reality and substitute my own!"''|'''[[Myth BustersMythBusters|Adam Savage]]''', [[Older Than They Think|quoting]] ''[[The Dungeonmaster]]''}}

== [[Anime]] &and [[Manga]] ==

* [[Depending on the Writer]], sometimes Lex Luthor ''actually believes'' that he is fighting to protect humanity from [[Superman]]. Other more minor villains, like (the most recent version of) Sam Lane, may believe the same.

* ''Unknown Soldier'' from DC Comics, one of the versions. He is there when America liberates a Nazi concentration camp. He kind of snaps. Now he believes that whatever America does is right, no matter how horrible, because they once fought against the horrible Nazis.

*** The Masadans also believe things happened in a way that can't possible be true, all so that they can hold their women in less than slavery and continue to pursue their goal of destroying Grayson.

== [[Live -Action TV]] ==

* The Balseraph demons from ''[[In Nomine]]'' essentially have this as the core aspect of their character. As fallen Angels of Truth, they become Demons of Deception, capable of weaving lies that others end up believing without question. But to do this, a Balseraph must first convince ''himself'' of the lie, warping his own personal truth to reflect the lie. For example, a Balseraph trying to convince a bar bouncer that he's a VIP must first convince himself that, "Yes, I'm a VIP, and I've been at this club dozens of times. Why isn't that bouncer letting me in already?"

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain]]'' reveals that {{spoiler|Huey Emmerich}} mastered this trope to the point that not only does {{spoiler|he}} believe itthe most blatant lie as fact despite all evidence to the contrary, but does it at a subconscious level; {{spoiler|he}} lies and doublethinks so much {{spoiler|he}} doesn't even realize {{spoiler|he's}} lying anymore.

*** He supposedly wrote it to win a bet with fellow sci-fi author Robert A. Heinlein, on whether a sci-fi writer could actually start a "cult[[Cult of personality"Personality]] around their works. Supposedly, ''[[Stranger in Aa Strange Land]]'' was Heinlein's attempt. The story goes that Heinlein backed off when he wasrealized that it was ''working'', while Hubbard [[As You Know|did not]]. The rumor dates from over a decade before the Manson Gang murders and People's Temple incident highlighted how abusive personality cults actually were, eventually leading to the discovery that the supposedly "good" personality cults of Stalin and Mao were actually much worse than propagandists made them seem at the time. There is no proof of the bet, though there are several witnesses who overheard their discussion (or claim to have). In any case, Hubbard himself quickly acclimated to his new role as cult leader, and many of Scientology's most successful practices (especially the "Attack the Attacker" policy that causes most of the controversy) were instituted on his explicit orders. Whether Hubbard ever came to actually believe in his own lies is debatable, but he certainly came to believe that profiting off the actions of the literal cult he created was perfectly ethical, regardless of the lives they destroyed in the process, as long as it remained legal.

** To glue the new enemy to the old one<ref>note how a propaganda narrative follows [[The "Unicorn In The Garden" Rule|rules of fiction]] when trying to speak clearer than reality</ref>, Nazi propaganda made up [[Josef Stalin]]'s imaginary 3rdthird wife "Rosa Kaganovich". Apparently, they scattered a lot of propaganda leaflets for Red Army soldiers mentioning this particular bit of their Jewish conspiracy story. When Yakov Dzhugashvili was captured and interrogated they asked him about his father's private life, including this imaginary "last wife", which suggests they saw her as real. By some accounts, they even mistook Yakov himself for her son.

** When the Pacific war against the Americans began to go south, the Japanese military from top to bottom began lying about inflicting losses to save face: increasingly disastrous defeats and ineffective attacks were rewritten as glorious victories and crushing defeats upon the Americans. The army often claimed fantastic victories (when they in fact had been defeated) and assigned their commanders ludicrious objectives based upon these assumptions, and the navy and the air force again and again claimed to have sunk entire American fleets, even when they had sunk no ships at all (certain American vessels, such as the ''Enterprise'' and the ''Essex'' were claimed to have been sunk multiple times). The Japanese high command, desperate to hold off the Americans, eagerly swallowed these lies and didn't bother to confirm them before informing the other branches of the service. This had disastrous consequences for all concerned; the army would often launch attacks and hold impossible positions because the navy blustered that the American fleet had been sunk, and vice versa. Japanese self-delusion was so effective that their defeat at end of the war came as a complete shock to much of the Japanese military and populace.