Cassandra Truth: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|''A prophet that, Cassandra-like,

 

Sometimes people just won't believe you.

 

{{examples}}

* Pretty much any hero in the ''[[.hack]]'' franchise can't even get to telling their parents or the authorities; despite mass server failures, clear evidence of a conspiracy or two, people [[Trapped in Another World|trapped in the game]], [[Everything Is Online|machine problems everywhere]] and even ''comas'', who would believe that an MMORPG was [[Serious Business]]?

* [[Just a Kid|Kid]]-[[Older Than They Look|Conan]] in the ''[[Detective Conan]]'' series knows about this problem, and solves it using a tranquilizer watch and a voice-changing bowtie to make it seem like someone more trustworthy in the eyes of the police is making all the deductions.

* Happened early in ''[[One Piece]]'', during the arc that introduced Ussop. In the aforementioned arc the villain ended up being well known in Ussop's town, and being a known liar, no one believed him.

** [[Played for Laughs]] in the Fishman Island arc when Princess Shirahoshi is "kidnapped" and King Neptune believes Luffy did it. Brook comments he didn't see her leave, only seeing Luffy riding a shark (Megalo). Neptune believes he stuffed Shirahoshi into Megalo's mouth and rode out. The guards all laugh at this idea. ... That's exactly what happened.

* Poor Rika in ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]''. She ''tries'' to warn Tomitake and Takano, but do they ever listen to her? Of course not; she barely comes up to their bellybuttons. (Actually, at one point Takano does seem to acknowledge Rika's foresight, but {{spoiler|that's only because she knows what's going to happen; it's ''her'' Evil Plan.}})

* Light Yagami of ''[[Death Note]]'' subverts this several times, at one point "[[Sarcastic Confession|admitting]]" that he might be Kira so he can be locked up in order to prove that he isn't Kira and renounces possession of the Death Note so he can [[Memory Gambit|lose his memory]], thus playing the role of innocent even more. Of course, it is all [[All According to Plan|All According To]] [[Memetic Mutation|Keikaku]].<ref>Keikaku means Plan</ref>

* ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'' has a tragic example in which Homura {{spoiler|in the [[Groundhog Day Loop|third time-loop]]}} tries to explain {{spoiler|that Kyubey had been lying to the girls and has been orchestrated their transformations into witches}}. Not only does everyone not believe her, but when {{spoiler|Sayaka}} finally does turn into a witch, the consequences lead to one of the worst events {{spoiler|of all the loops}}.

* ''[[Persona 4: The Animation]]'' has Yukiko and Rise telling Naoto all about the world inside the TV and Personas. Naoto doesn't believe them.

 

* The first volume of ''[[Runaways]]'' has the superpowered main characters struggling with the fact that no-one will believe that their parents are supervillains, resulting in them having to bring them down personally. Conversely, after the Pride are dead, their activities exposed, ''still'' few are willing to trust the Runaways, because of who their parents were. In this case it was somewhat subverted by the fact that the characters' parents essentially [[Police Are Useless|owned the police]] and had their fingers in the pies of every major organization, illicit or non, on the West Coast.

* In a ''[[Swamp Thing]]'' storyline where the title character is believed dead, [[Adam Strange]] shows up to tell Swampy's girlfriend that he's still alive and is trying to get home to her. She's incredibly relieved... until Adam starts helpfully explaining how he met him on an alien planet that he travels to by "zeta beam", at which point she shuts the door in his face.

** Adam Strange gets similar treatment in [[The DCU]] [[Elseworlds]] story ''[[Justice League: The New Frontier]]''. He even gets locked up in Arkham Asylum.

* In ''[[Route 666]]'', the main character is named Cassandra (usually called "Cassie") and suddenly starts seeing [[The Masquerade|a world of ghosts and horrific monsters]] preying upon humanity. No one else can see this, and so, in her struggles against them, she is also pursued by the police as a psychopathic killer.

* Invoked by [[Neil Gaiman]] in a 1993 speech at the Diamond Retailers Seminar: "I'm not here to play Cassandra. I do not have the figure and I do not have the legs". In his speech, he predicted that [[The Great Comics Crash of 1996|the contemporary speculator boom in comics would result in the market crashing]].

 

* This is the basic premise of ''[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4388031/1/The-Boy-Who-Cried-Yuri The Boy Who Cried Yuri]'', with Shinji on the receiving end. When he tries to alert Misato, she instantly dismisses him—even though she should know very well that he's too much of a coward to make this up. Asuka even lampshades it.

''(unknown to them, Shinji's [[Genre Savvy|already hiding in the room with a tape recorder]])'' }}

** And then it gets ''double subverted'' when Shinji shows his audio evidence to Misato: she ambushes the girls during their next session... and [[Selective Enforcement|instead of punishing them, she joins the fun]].

* Neither of Calvin's parents believe him when he describes the bizarre adventures he's been on in ''[[Calvin and Hobbes: The Series]]''.

** Same with Miss Wormwood when grading his paper on Egypt (which he completed by going there himself).

 

* In ''[[Ice Age]] 2'', Sid is kidnapped in his sleep by a tribe of mini-sloths who wish to sacrifice him to prevent the coming flood. When he stumbles back into camp the next morning, no-one believes his story, insisting that he was just sleepwalking and dreamed the whole thing.

* ''[[An American Tail]]''

** The original has Tanya be the only one to know Fievel was still alive after being washed overboard,and Fievel be the only one to know Warren T. Rat was in fact a cat scamming the mice and planning to eat them.

{{quote|'''Mr. Tweedy:''' [[I Warned You|I told you, they was organized.]]}}

* In ''[[Recess: School's Out]]'', the police laugh off and outright mock T.J.'s attempts to tell them that an evil mastermind has taken up residence in the school now that it has been abandoned for the summer. They do this even when T.J.'s friends back him up, and when Ms. Finster tells them that something's going on at the school. The fact that they weren't even willing to believe Finster, a teacher at the same school and thus theoretically a better source than kids also gives them shades of [[Bad Cop, Incompetent Cop]].

* ''[[Osmosis Jones]]'' infiltrates the villain Thrax's organisation and learns his entire plan—but because he's a screw-up, nobody believes his warnings. Thrax even points this out, and has a laugh over it.

* Almost every live-action Disney film ever.

** Jack Sparrow even lampshades this in ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: Curse of the Black Pearl'' when he tells the two guards exactly why he wants to get onto the ship in Port Royal. He trusts that they will disbelieve him because the truth seems very outlandish and sneaks by them while they're arguing over whether he is or is not lying.

** The song, "I Saw a Dragon" from ''[[Pete's Dragon|Petes Dragon]]'' is nothing but this trope.

** [[Expanded Universe]] material implies that no one really believed [[Tron|Kevin Flynn]] either. Then, he goes missing, and no one thinks to check the arcade for hidden doors...

* In ''[[Home Alone]] 3'', the cops don't believe Alex's claims that burglars are breaking into neighborhood houses. Somewhat justified in that the cops came in three times. It's just that the industrial spies breaking in to houses were pretty good at running away and leaving no traces.

* Nobody, not even her husband and therapist, believed Kate's accusations of sweet {{spoiler|seemingly}} nine-year-old Russian ''[[Orphan]]'' Esther actually being a murderous psychopath.

'''Kirk:''' ''(oozing charm)'' No, I'm from Iowa. I just work in outer space. }}

* ''[[Star Trek]]'''s finest Cassandra Truth occurs in ''[[Star Trek: First Contact|First Contact]]''. Commander Riker and Troi have traveled back to 21st Century Montana and try to convince Zefram Cochrane, inventor of human warp flight and the man responsible for humanity meeting the Vulcans, of the importance of his flight, and why the Borg are trying to stop him.

'''Cochrane:''' Hot damn! You're heroic! ''(laughs in Riker's face)'' }}

* Happens in ''[[The Man Who Knew Too Little]]'' when Wallace is given a [[Truth Serum]]:

* In ''The Wedding Date'', Debra Messing's character hires a gentleman escort as her date, so that the rest of her family and her ex-fiancé will be jealous. Later, when the groom asks him how he knows so much about women:

{{quote|'''Nick:''' I'm a hooker.}}

* ''[[Die Hard]]'' has one of the most amusing examples of this trope. Protagonist John McClane is attending a Christmas party on the 30th floor of a skyscraper which suddenly gets taken over by terrorists. He pulls the fire alarm in an attempt to get the attention of the authorities, which winds up being canceled by one of the terrorists. He then steals a radio and tries to contact the police that way. Despite audible ''gunfire'' in the transmission, the police dispatcher is still unconvinced and informs John he's broadcasting on a restricted channel, prompting the infamous line, "No fucking shit, lady! Do I sound like I'm ordering a pizza?!" It gets even better when she informs him it is illegal to file a false report and he then ''begs'' her to send police to arrest him. According [[Word of God|to the script,]] this scene was inspired by a recording of ''a real 911 call.''

* In the ''[[Gremlins]]'' film series, the authorities do not believe that a horde of little monsters that can't be fed after midnight are terrorizing the local movie theatre and sporting good store.

* [[Affectionate Parody|Played for laughs]] in ''[[Killer Klowns From Outer Space]]''.

'''Samir:''' Yes?

'''Harry Tasker:''' I picked them. ''(holds up the handcuffs; events transpire as predicted)'' }}

{{quote|Wait, wait, wait! I have something to tell you. By the time this is over...all of you will be facedown on the floor...and I'll moon-walk out of here. You're not listening to me. First, you're going to help me [[Bench Breaker|out of my chair.]] Then I'll leapfrog over you...before I break his nose. Since my trusty lighter...isn't working, I'll do all this [[With My Hands Tied]] behind my back.}}

* ''[[Octopussy]]'', when Bond tries to warn a US general about a [[Time Bomb|nuclear bomb]] hidden in a circus cannon. [[All Part of the Show|Then again, being disguised as a clown probably didn't help matters either]]. {{spoiler|It's a good thing Octopussy believed him.}}

* The police refuse to investigate the two dead bodies in ''[[Mystery Team]]'', simply because the main character is an amateur detective.

* In ''[[Riddick|The Chronicles of Riddick]]'', Riddick tells the prison guards that he will kill one of them with his teacup. The guard, not believing him, rushes Riddick with a knife, and is promptly impaled on the cup. Riddick then places a tin can key where the cup previously sat. The other guards glance at it, then at Riddick, before hastily leaving.

{{quote|'''Dr. Holder's Assistant''': Hadn't it ever occurred to you that the ashes, assimilated into the air, could fall back to Earth again?

'''General Morton''': That's ridiculous, pure [[Science Fiction]]! }}

* In ''[[Ghost Rider (film)|Ghost Rider]]'', Johnny Blaze awkwardly explains to his [[Old Flame]] Roxie that he is the devil's bounty hunter, which she believes is merely a ridiculous excuse.

 

* Most books in the ''[[Goosebumps]]'' series by [[RL Stine]], in which the protagonists' supernatural claims are disbelieved by parents and authorities. This is turned around in "The Girl Who Cried Monster"; the girl's parents don't believe that her librarian is a monster, not because they don't think monsters exist, but {{spoiler|because they're monsters, and they thought they'd eliminated all nearby competitors long ago}}.

* In Anne S. Lindbergh's ''The People in Pineapple Place'' August's mother does not believe his stories of Pineapple Place, an alley only he can see, filled with families, all of whom only he can see. However, it turns out that his mother is a [[Reasonable Authority Figure]], and comes to believe him once she sees evidence of August's story (a child she (and August) can see, but no one else can, able to get away with considerable mischief, and a security guard, apparently making a fool out of himself in front of a large crowd of people, none of whom (except August) can see the girl he (truthfully) claims to have caught roller-skating in a museum).

* Any number of examples in ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]''

*** Well, maybe McGonagall was trying to cover for the trio as long as she could... and then Filch brought them up on an entirely different charge: [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|wandering the halls in the middle of the night]]. And they get reamed ''much'' more epically than did Draco. (In the film, Draco assumed that he heard wrong when [[Shoot the Messenger|McGonagall punished him with them for reporting them while up at 1 AM]], while in the book, Draco is punished separately as the trio heads for the Astronomy Tower to free said Dragon into the wild, and the trio—in which Neville fills Ron's usual place—isn't delivered up by Filch until the return trip is attempted and [[Oh Crap|they realize too late they had left the Invisibility Cloak off while leaving]].)

** Sybill (great-granddaughter of famous Seer ''Cassandra'') Trelawney is regarded as a fraud by her colleagues and some of her students, but the mindful reader will notice that almost everything she "predicts" ''does'' actually happen, just not in the way she says it will.

* A major part of the plot in the ''[[Warrior Cats]]'' book ''Dark River'': when a crisis on RiverClan territory forces them out of their camp, the other Clans all start preparing for invasion, since they believe that RiverClan will now try to take some new territory. Hollypaw is seemingly the only cat on the lake that notices that all these fears are founded on nothing but paranoia, and that by preparing for a battle, everyone is making it that much more likely to happen. Naturally, nobody listens to her when she says they should try to ''help'' RiverClan with their problem, or at least get more information about it before jumping to conclusions, because she's just an apprentice and they are all "more experienced".

* This is the whole point of Lemony Snicket's ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]''. No one ''ever'' believes Baudelaire children, no matter how many times they tell them that their new [[Master of Disguise|principal/gym teacher/assistant/captain/chief of medicine/whatever]] is Count Olaf trying to kill them. Even if the current experience ''strangely'' mirrors that of the previous one. Basically, the majority of adults are [[Adults Are Useless|either evil, will become evil, or are retarded]].

* In the [[Secret Series]], the main character is named after the character from Greek legend and is often not believed by adults. A fairly detailed description of the original Cassandra character is given in the first book.

* In the short story collection ''Far North & Other Dark Tales'', by Sara Maitland, the mythological story of Cassandra is retold as being the result of a Apollo severing her corpus callosum as revenge for her withholding the sex she had promised in exchange for the gift of prophesy. She can see the future, but because of her brain damage cannot articulate clearly enough to be understood.

* [[Played for Laughs]] at the end of the [[Dale Brown]] novel ''Flight of the Old Dog'', where Patrick McLanahan casually tells his mother that he had just come back from bombing Russia. Mrs. McLanahan doesn't believe him. Also used seriously in ''Plan of Attack'', where no one outside of the Air Battle Force believes that a Russian attack is coming, as well as in ''Edge of Battle'' where no one believes just how dangerous Comandante Veracruz's plan really is.

* In Jill Paton Walsh's ''A Presumption of Death'', retired dentist Mrs. Spright is paranoid and senile so nobody pays attention when she claims that there are Nazi spies in Paggleham. It turns out that she's right.

* Jared in ''The Field Guide'', the first installment of [[The Spiderwick Chronicles]], tries to tell his family that faeries are causing all the mischief that he is being blamed for...but, since he's nine and has been acting mischeviously as of late anyway, no one believes him.

* In the ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' books, the few Solarians that recognise how far behind the times their Navy is are often casually dismissed as alarmists and defeatists.

* ''[[Kill Time or Die Trying]]'', Brad spends his entire first day at university trying to figure out where to go. The only reliable directions he's given come from a pair of stoners, who he ignores.

* In [[Roger Zelazny]]'s ''This Immortal'', Conrad Nomikos' wife is [[Meaningful Name|actually named]] Cassandra, and when she says at the beginning that she has a feeling he's heading into danger, he tells her he doubts it. He '''is''', of course. At the end, {{spoiler|he tells her his new job is going to be an enormous headache, she replies that it won't, and he says she's too optimistic}}. He even acknowledges that she's been accurate in the past, but '''this''' time, he's sure, she's wrong....

 

* G'Kar of ''[[Babylon 5]]'' has been described as [[J. Michael Straczynski|JMS's]] Cassandra; at various points, he predicts what will happen, but no-one believes him, mostly because they don't want to. For example, he tries to warn other races that the Centauri, having conquered the Narn, will turn their attention to others... which they promptly do. It was later revealed that both Delenn and Kosh knew some of his rantings were true but couldn't act in case it showed their hand too early. G'Kar calling Delenn on it when he finally found out was awesome.

* ''[[iCarly]]''

** In the first episode, Claire announces at the dinner table, "I walked through fire today, and I didn't get burned." However, her mother thinks she's just being metaphorical and profound. Although to be fair, her brother ''was'' fairly suspicious and her mother isn't the sharpest anymore {{spoiler|since the Haitian has been repeatedly wiping her memory which has resulted in the equivalent of punching her brain.}}

** Angela Petrelli explicitly references the Trope Namer when she talks about [[Dreaming of Things to Come|her ability]] in the episode "Into Asylum". She also states that trying to work around this skepticism is what turned her into the [[Manipulative Bastard|Manipulative Bitch]] that we all know and love today.

** From an early episode:

{{quote|'''Chief:''' How did you figure that out?

'''Chief:''' That's not funny! }}

** River really is a seer, but since she's also a paranoid schizophrenic, people generally don't listen to her until late in the series.

** Inverted in the Big Damn Movie. While the Cassandra of myth went insane because nobody believed her, River, who started out insane, regains her sanity after the crew finally believe her.

* ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'':

{{quote|'''Olive:''' Why'd you fake your death? Is this an insurance scam? Are you and the pie maker in some kind of cahoots together?

'''Olive:''' If you don't want to tell me, just say so. }}

* Lately, Hank of ''[[Royal Pains]]''. No one believes that his father, [[Disappeared Dad|Eddie R.]], is as toxic as he claims. Not even Evan. Especially not Evan.

'''Daniel Jackson:''' So you do?

'''Jack O'Neill:''' No. It's just that... we don't believe you. }}

* Done in ''[[Sister, Sister]]'': Tamera promises her dad to tell the truth for the day, then sees his girlfriend with another man at a movie theater. When she tells him, he's so disappointed that she broke her promise... until he catches her with the other guy when they go out to dinner.

* Virtually everything John says to his coworkers in ''[[New Amsterdam]]''.

* Used for comedy in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTgj2Dt6l6Y this] early ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' episode, where [[John Cleese]]'s Customs officer refuses to believe that [[Michael Palin]]'s character is a smuggler, despite the fact that he's loaded with contraband.

** The Xindi story arc features a few of these. Most notably, Daniels has to bring Archer to the future to see the truth of the Xindi's misguided attempts to destroy humanity. When Archer tried to explain to the Xindi that not only was humanity not going to attack them, they were actually going to join forces at some point in the future and defeat a common foe, the Xindi council almost has him executed for his "blasphemy". Admittedly the Xindi did see this foe as gods/angels at the time and they had a different story of future events.

** Subverted in the episode "In The Cards". Jake and Nog's [[Chain of Deals]] has attracted the attention of the bad guys, who refuse to believe they're going to all that effort to get a baseball card for Jake's dad. Jake therefore decides to take [[Refuge in Audacity]], and instead claims they need the card for a secret Starfleet mission; [[Beethoven Was an Alien Spy|Willie Mays is a time traveller]], and they have to find out what he was doing in the past. After a moment of uncertainty Weyoun says "I believe you. That is, I believe your ''first'' story."

** In the same episode, Jake and Nog's attempts to tell station personnel that something weird is going on (without mentioning the card) consistently fail when they get to Dr Elias Giger and his "cellular regeneration and entertainment device" (understandably, since the implication of the episode was that this was [[Techno Babble]] by ''Star Trek'' standards). Weyoun turns out to believe that as well.

* [[Meaningful Name|Cassandra]] Spender in ''[[The X-Files]]'', with her stories of alien abduction and alien intentions that were deluded and then real. Well, for that matter, Mulder, with his stories of aliens and government conspiracies.

* In ''[[Carnivale]]'', when Libby finally tells her mom the truth about why she and Jonesy were gone all day, that is, that {{spoiler|they were kidnapped by some men who tarred and feathered Jonesy and left them in the middle of nowhere, until Ben happened to show up and heal Jonesy, and that Jonesy and Ben went off to find Ben's dad}}, she doesn't believe a word of it, even though I can't think of any reason why anyone would possibly make that story up.

* This happened nearly every week in the early episodes of ''[[Monk]]''; the implausibility of Monk's theory about the crime would be met with disbelief by the police captain, and usually everyone else. The show wisely eventually dropped this, with the captain beginning to accept Monk's explanations due to the fact that he always turns out to be right, even (reluctantly) defending Monk against each week's stand-in skeptic.

* ''[[Dexter]]'', in the episode "Shrink Wrap". {{spoiler|Dexter was already planning to kill his therapist for pushing three of his patients to suicide, so it didn't really matter if the therapist believed him or not.}}

'''Dr. Meridian:''' Well, you must be letting go, because I've never heard you make a joke before. }}

* ''[[Power Rangers]]''

** In the ''[[Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue]]'' episodes where the current Rangers team up with the previous group, the plot starts with a young girl discovering that aliens are secretly kidnapping people in the building her father works at. When trying to tell the genial old secretary on the first floor about it, the woman kindly informs her that monsters don't exist. Despite the fact that they live in an area currently infested by demons that attack weekly in an effort to completely wipe their city off the map so they can recreate their ancient society.

* ''[[Lost]]''

** In "Raised by Another", Claire tells everyone that someone is attacking her in her sleep and trying to inject something into her pregnant belly. They all dismiss this as vivid dreams of a pregnant woman, only to feel suitably guilty when Ethan (who has indeed been giving her injections) kidnaps Claire and almost kills Charlie.

** Oddly enough, it's averted in ''[[Medium]]'' a lot.

* Yuri Aso in ''[[Kamen Rider Kiva]]'' is always being told Cassandra Truths ("I'm 105 years old.", "Your love interest is actually a homicidal monster who wants to use you to repopulate his race.") but never believes them. You would think a professional monster hunter would be less skeptical. Within the series, it's assumed that any monstery things other than the [[Our Vampires Are Different|Fangire]] are extinct because of the Fangire. Why would a professional ''vampire'' hunter think that one of her suitors is a werewolf seeking to use her as a baby factory, that his friends the little shoe shine boy and the tall silent masseuse are a fishman and [[Frankenstein's Monster]] respectively?

* In ''[[Kamen Rider Decade]]'', self-proclaimed prophet Narutaki spends most of the series claiming that the title character is the Destroyer of Worlds and must be stopped. It looks like this trope because Tsukasa/Decade is doing his best to ''save'' parallel worlds and is actually connecting them. This isn't helped by the fact that even people like [[Kamen Rider Blade]] Kazuma Kenzaki say the same thing. {{spoiler|It turns out Narutaki was right ''and'' wrong -- Decade's '''job''' is to destroy the multiverse, but Tsukasa's actions in connecting the worlds not only brought them all back but ensured that they would become legends and exist forever.}}

** What really makes this a [[Mind Screw]]: {{spoiler|In the [[Grand Finale]] movie, Narutaki reveals himself as [[Kamen Rider (TV series)|Colonel Zol]], which suggests that he was trying to get Decade defeated so Shocker would have an easier time taking over the multiverse.}}

* In ''[[Charmed]]'', Phoebe tries to tell her sisters about [[Our Angels Are Different|Leo's true identity]]. Naturally, it's treated as a joke.

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' falls victim to this trope more than once.

* In ''[[Nikita (TV series)|Nikita]]'', Nathan asks Alex what's bothering her. He figured she was in some kind of trouble with the mob, or something. Alex finally spills the beans because {{spoiler|she's planning to escape and she's worried Division will interrogate or kill him}}. Nathan believes her story about government conspiracy agents is a diversion to deny what's really bothering her.

* In an episode of ''[[Seinfeld]]'', George is truthfully attempting to explain away a very strange series of coincidences to an old childhood friend, who is convinced that George is going insane and doesn't believe his (admittedly odd-sounding) explanations.

* In an episode of ''[[Frasier]]'' Daphne tries to explain that her Greek friend Zena will soon be arriving on her (the friend's) mother's ship, but the other person thinks she's talking about [[Xena: Warrior Princess|Xena]] arriving on an alien mothership.

 

* This trope is a huge part of the ''[[Ayreon]]'' legendarium. In ''The Final Experiment'' the protagonist, Ayreon, is sent visions from the future about the end of the world and travels to King Arthur's court to warn him. {{spoiler|Merlin is jealous, convinces everyone that Ayreon is wrong, and realizes that was a bad idea too late. He predicts that another seer will come:}} Mr. L in 01011001 has dreams about the end of the world sent to him by cyborg fish aliens; unfortunately, he's in an insane asylum.

* ''[[Emilie Autumn]]'''s [[Bedlam House]] chic is heavily based on her belief that psychiatric institutions have not progressed that much with patient care: specifically, she alleges that abuse is rampant but never gets brought up because "[she's] the crazy girl and he's the doctor with a million dollar education".

* Go listen to "Cassandra" by [[ABBA]]. Just do it.

 

* The trope namer: Cassandra from [[Classical Mythology]], theater, and literature, as featured in ''[[The Iliad]]'',''[[Odyssey|The Odyssey]]'', the [[Missing Episode|lost epics]] of the ''[[The Trojan Cycle|Trojan Cycle]]'', ''[[The Aeneid]]'', and many others!

** Some versions of the myth have Apollo putting a curse on her so that people would ''never'' believe her prophecies—because she [[I Lied|falsely promised]] to have sex with him to get her precognitive power! The [[An Aesop|moral of the story]] is: Don't lie to gods. The actual Aesop: get the sex first, ''then'' give her the power.

* Numerous [[The Bible|Biblical]] prophets, most notably Jeremiah and Elijah, spent much of their lives trying to convince the public in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah that exile was imminent due to the people having strayed from the Torah's commandments, and the monarchy in particular having turned to idolatry. This was often met with hostility, particularly [[Shoot the Messenger|from the monarchy]].

 

 

* A quite magnificent example in the first episode of Series Two of the [[The BBC|BBC]] Radio 4 comedy ''The Casebook of Inspector Steine''. As it begins, Mrs Gloynes, the police station tea lady who is actually the crime boss of 1950s Brighton, has been laying low since the highly intelligent PC Twitten discovered her secret and agreed to keep quiet if the crimewave stopped. Near the end, the constable is reluctantly dragged on stage at a music hall and hypnotised to believe that "this charming Cockney charlady is a criminal mastermind". The episode ends with crime rates up again, and Steine telling Twitten that if there's no way to snap him out of this delusion, the least he could do is keep quiet about it.

 

* ''[[Mage: The Awakening]]'' features "Proximi", families with a magical heritage, limited magic, and an unbreakable family Curse. Particularly noteworthy are the Primid family, said to be descended from Cassandra with a gift for prophecy, and who '''originally''' shared her Curse. They eventually tried to use it to their advantage (deliberately making predictions that they ''knew'' people would act against, as a way to manipulate them), so the Curse altered itself accordingly (the point of Proximus Curses being that they are ''always'' bad, and change themselves to fit loopholes). Now, the Primid Curse is that they are incapable of accurately conveying their prophecies ''at all'' (that is, they will know the future, but will be unable to truthfully tell it to anyone else).

 

* In ''[[Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (theatre)|Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street]]'', once Mrs. Lovett's pie shop starts doing business again, the Beggar Woman starts hanging around the shop, trying to warn people that something evil's afoot, pointing out the stench from her chimneys and claiming that Mrs. Lovett is a witch. Naturally, no one believes her because she's a mad beggar woman.

* [[Trope Namer]]: Within ''[[The Oresteia]]'', in the play ''[[Agamemnon]]'' by [[Aeschylus]], Cassandra gives a prophecy revealing Clytaemnestra's plan to kill her husband, Agamemnon. In somewhat of a subversion, here a character ''does'' try to listen to Cassandra, but doesn't understand a thing she says, and then asks her to stop talking about such horrible things, because they would never happen.

* In ''[[Pygmalion]]'', act III, when Eliza is taken to a party, Nepommuck remarks that she can't be English, because her English is too perfect. Higgins replies, paraphrasing here, "Well, I think she sounds like someone taught by an expert, probably from Drury Lane." Notably, the host of the party goes with Nepommuck instead of Higgins. {{spoiler|Obviously, Higgins was the one telling the truth.}}

 

* A meta example: If you say you're lagging in an online game, nobody believes you. They think you're just making up excuses for sucking... even if you really ''are'' lagging. And even in games where you get to see your teammates' latencies.

* A "mysterious sorceress" in ''[[Suikoden III]]'' wanders into Karaya Village with a prophecy that the village will be attacked by Zexen forces and that everyone should clear out immediately. Nobody believes her, and the village is destroyed. Of course, the reason she knew about this is because {{spoiler|she was part of the plot}}, and just wanted to minimize casualties.

* ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'': No, really. The darkness DOES come and will damn us all if nobody stops it, so may the rats eat your eyes for not listening to Max Roivas.

* In ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (video game)|Knights of the Old Republic]] 2'', you arrive in Iziz spaceport looking for a Jedi master, smuggled aboard the personal shuttle of the Mandalorian leader. Feel free to tell the customs officers any of this, they won't believe a word.

** In Patch 4.3 of ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', if you talk to Bishop Farthing and tell him that Archbishop Benedictus, who supposedly left to help the Dragon Aspects, {{spoiler|is actually the Twilight Prophet}}, he will first laugh it off, and if you insist that it's true, he will scold you for believing and spreading false rumors, mentioning to one he heard about Bolvar (whom everyone thinks is dead {{spoiler|but is actually the new Lich King}}).

* ''[[Glory of Heracles]] DS'' has Cassandra herself show up, and gives a different reason why her prophecies are unbelieved: when she tries to give them, half the words are rendered unintelligible. Only Achilles can hear her prophecies, and he gets offed pretty fast. Eventually, the party takes her into a room lined with stone that cuts off the power of the gods, and her curse lifts long enough for her to give them her prophecy (which basically says "[[Eldritch Abomination|Typhon]] is coming").

* ''[[Golden Sun]]''

** Feizhi is essentially a kung-fu [[Anime Chinese Girl]] Cassandra. Several of the NPCs in Xian are indicated to believe her visions, after the first two came true... but her father not only disbelieves, he ''rebukes'' her for having a vision that her friend was caught in a rockslide and worrying about him, which is the part our heroes see before she runs off in tears to find her friend.

** {{spoiler|Saturos and Menardi. They tried to explain the situation to the Vale elders, but when they didn't believe them, they were forced to take drastic actions.}}

* ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'': After the Time Key {{spoiler|gets stolen}} and you go find it, Azala asks you what it does. If you tell him, he doesn't believe you, saying if it were true, you wouldn't tell an enemy.

 

* In ''[[Tsukihime]]'', the day after fighting and killing Nrvnqsr Chaos Shiki is given the option of telling the truth about what he had been doing the past few days to his sister Akiha. She simply laughs at his explanation, {{spoiler|but in reality she actually probably believes his supernatural story, being a supernatural being herself}}.

* In ''[[Remember 11]]'', Kokoro and Satoru attempt (and fail) to convince their respective companions that the two of them are experiencing random [[Freaky Friday Flip|personality transfers]].

* One of ''[[Corpse Party]]: Blood Covered'''s [[Bad End]]ings has this: {{spoiler|Satoshi finds himself sent back to the day they performed the ritual that sent them to Tenjin. Unfortunately, he can't convince anyone not to go along with it, as they all assume he's just too scared and superstitious rather than having good reason to protest}}. ''Book of Shadows'' actually picks up from this ending and deals with the results.

 

* ''[[Red vs. Blue]]''. "The tank is Real, for the love of God!"

 

* [http://samandfuzzy.com/archive.php?comicID=869 Here] in ''[[Sam and Fuzzy]]''.

* At the end of the "To Thine Own Self" arc of ''[[General Protection Fault]]'', Trudy {{spoiler|tells the rest of the cast that she wants to stay behind in the Nega-verse and atone for what she did, knowing that it's better than going to jail for the rest of her life, and asks that they bring her counterpart to the real world. The building shakes, knocking Trudy out, and Nega-Trudy comes to, putting on the pin to make them think she's the real Trudy. She then tells them to take the real Trudy back, claiming that she will be delusional after coming to and will falsely claim to be the real Trudy. Trudy attempts to explain that she is the real one several times, but to no avail}}.

* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]''

** Played straight in [http://sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/000504 this strip].

{{quote|'''Torg:''' Remember Oasis, the killer-robot who was ordered to love me and then blew up in a massive explosion with her creator?

** Explaining that he and a main character are wrongly imprisoned, Thog tells it just exactly like it is [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0367.html here]:

{{quote|'''Thog: not nale. not-nale. thog help nail not-nale, not nale. and thog knot not-nale while nale nail not-nale. nale, not not-nale, now nail not-nale by leaving not-nale, not nale, in jail.'''}}

* ''[[Homestuck]]''

** Dave suggests a great subversion:

{{quote|'''TG:''' skepticism is the crutch of cinematic troglodytes

be fuckin dad of the year right there }}

** Later played [[Tear Jerker|heart-rendingly]] straight in [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005260 this] memo from Karkat to the troll's past selves. During it, a few of the people who really should be paying the most attention to it miss the point or dismiss it as more of Karkat's outrageous nonsense. {{spoiler|Namely, Feferi, Eridan, and Gamzee, who have respectively: died at the hands of Eridan, [[Face Heel Turn|switched sides]] and killed two people as well as possibly blinded a third, and gone completely batshit insane and gone on a killing spree.}}

* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' has an officer who got [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-12-27 both this problem and its solution].

 

* In the ''[[Paradise]]'' setting, this frequently applies to characters who try to convince others that they have been invisibly transformed into [[Funny Animal]]s but just don't look that way to normal people. There are ways to short-circuit the [[Weirdness Censor]] temporarily, however.

* [[Sean Malstrom]] accurately predicted the rise of the [[Wii]] to first place in the seventh generation all the way back in 2006, when others were expecting the Wii to follow in the footsteps of [[Game Cube|its predecessor]] in terms of commercial success. However, Malstrom hasn't exactly become famous for this thanks to his [[Love It or Hate It|controversial opinions on other gaming-related subjects]] overshadowing everything else.

 

* ''[[King of the Hill]]''

** When Bobby Hill tries to tell his father about something he's proud of himself for doing, Hank dismisses him because he is so used to Bobbies disappointments as a son.

* ''[[The Ren and Stimpy Show]]'': "I TOLD YOU I'D SHOOT! BUT YOU DIDN'T BELIEVE ME! WHYYYY DIDN'T YOU BELIEVE ME?!"

* Occurs in an episode of ''[[The Penguins of Madagascar]]''. While on night watch duty, Private consumes too many sugary snacks and ends up on a serious sugar buzz, when he sees a "sky orca" (shortened to "skorca"). He tries in vain to convince the other three penguins, both of whom only look for it when it's not in the air. They even fake being attacked and carried off. Later on, they (along with the lemurs and [[Blood Knight|Joey the Kangaroo]]) find it and defeat it for real, unaware that it was actually {{spoiler|a parade float}}.

* On ''[[Family Guy]]'', no-one believes Peter when he says he heard the world was going to end at midnight from a chicken-man. Although since the episode was [[All Just a Dream]], it wasn't real anyway.

** Subverted when Princess Celestia responds to Twilight Sparkle's discovery that [[Sealed Evil in a Can]] Nightmare Moon is about to escape her confinement by telling her to get her head out of her books long enough to make some friends. Ultimately, though, the case proves to be that Celestia knew that Twilight was the one in the best position to defeat Nightmare Moon, and sent her to a place she would potentially make the friends she needed to fully use the Elements of Harmony.

** Later played straight in "Swarm of the Century". While everyone else is trying to drive the Parasprites out of town, Pinkie Pie is running around looking for instruments. At first she's just passed off as being [[Cloudcuckoolander|'typical Pinkie Pie']], and eventually yelled at for getting in the way- until it turns out the only way to get rid of the Parasprites is [[The Pied Piper of Hamelin|to lure them away with music.]] Of course, it didn't help that Pinkie never actually told anyone what she was doing...

* In one episode of ''[[Superman: The Animated Series]]'', Lois asks how a hayseed like Clark could possibly keep edging out a veteran reporter like herself for headlines. Clark responds that he's actually Superman and uses his job to find out about disasters in advance while taking the opportunity to scoop Lois. She responds "You're a sick man, Kent" while stalking off.

* In ''[[Rollbots]]'', No one believes Spin that Vertex is actually a [[Spider Tank|Spider]], and they have even greater difficulty believing that he is [[Big Bad|the one orchestrating all of Flip City's crime]]. Only when {{spoiler|Vett}} appears does anyone consider Spiderbots a viable idea, but only Penny accepts that Vertex ''might'' be a criminal mastermind. However, it turns out that {{spoiler|Captain Pounder and Ms. Appie}} knew the whole time.

 

** In addition to this, many 9/11 conspiracy theorists believe themselves to be telling Cassandra truths.

* The book ''Dead Men Do Tell Tales'' relates the story of a bitter old man who regularly threatened his neighbors by declaring he had murdered his son-in-law and buried the body in a septic tank, and he would be willing to do the same to them. When the old man died, they cleaned out his house... and found the son-in-law's corpse in the septic tank.

* William Lloyd Garrison, a founding father of the American Abolitionist movement, as well as abolitionists generally. {{spoiler|Turns out slavery's wrong, guys.}}

** Considering that probability problems like this are notoriously difficult to understand for anyone, including mathematicians who do not specialize in probability theory, this doesn't particularly prove that "mathematicians can't do math." If anything, it proves that even columnists aren't ''always'' talking out of their asses. It's a nice way to demonstrate how non-intuitive even seemingly trivial math problems are, though.

** One reason that this problem poses so much difficulty for a lot of people, including brilliant mathematicians and scientists, is because the scenario is often presented with a crucial piece of information missing: ''The host knows in advance which doors have goats behind them, and no matter what door the contestant chooses, the host will then open a door with a goat behind it.'' If the person describing the problem leaves that information out, and implies that the host always opens a door at random after the contestants choose, and it just happened in this scenario that the door had a goat behind it, then the odds involved would be completely different.

*** Not to mention her logic falls apart when you realize Hosts really could care less if they win or lose usually, as it's more about the spectacle of the event, and regardless they are ''trying'' to hype up everything, not deceive the player into losing. Basically by her logic and the way she perceives the host and the question, she is correct, but from a strictly statistical viewpoint, she is incorrect.

*** I'm afraid you're wrong - if the host opens one of the other doors randomly, and it has a goat, it is exactly the same as if he knew ahead of time that it would have a goat, from that point onward. Why? Because if the opened door has a goat, the situation is exactly the same as it would be if that door was chosen intentionally. What ''does'' change is the probability of winning on the switch ''prior'' to a door being opened by the host. In that case, the probability of winning is 1/3 no matter whether you intend to switch or stay, rather than having a 2/3 chance of winning by switching - but if the door that opens has the goat, then you have a 2/3 chance of winning from that point by switching (total probability is 1/3 because there's a 1/2 chance that the door with the car is opened, in which case you have 0 chance of winning). I know, it's hard to get your mind around, but it's true. The only way to get a 1/2 chance is to randomly choose between the remaining doors.

* Martha Mitchell, wife of Nixon Attorney General John Mitchell, claimed that President Nixon and the White House were engaged in illegal activity. She was diagnosed as being mentally ill.

* When he was young, a hypnotist visited [[Mark Twain]]'s town. His friend went up, but was less than a perfect subject. Just to get attention, young Samuel went up and did everything the hypnotist told him to, even hurting himself. When he went back to visit his elderly mother, decades later, he confessed, only to find that she actually argued with him that the hypnotism was real.

* During [[the American Revolution]]ary War, [[George Washington]] was prepping for his famous attack on Trenton. The entire attack could have been derailed had Johann Rall, the Hessian commander, listened to the spies and deserters who repeatedly warned him of the impending attack.

** Militaries tend to be the epitome of bureaucratic inertia, generally changing tactics only when their previous ones become completely untenable (whether due to lack of men or materiel or political issues). It's often said that they prepare to fight the ''last'' war.

** It gets worse: an aviation-minded admiral "attacked" Pearl Harbor with carrier-based planes in February 1932 (on Sunday the 7th, no less) during a war game. If the bombs and bullets had been real, the place would've been a wreck. The powers that be basically lied, claiming that his planes were never in the right positions to do that much damage. The attack came from the same direction and used the same persistent cloudbank for a concealed approach as the one not quite ten years later.

** On the other side, the Japanese architect of the attack, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, warned that if Japan waged war with the USA, they would have the advantage for six months after which USA would get the upper hand and keep it. Of course, Japanese government didn't listen and six months after the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese fleet is irretrievably crippled as an offensive force at the Battle of Midway.

* [[Political Correctness Gone Mad]]: In both that trope and its [[Inverted Trope|inverse]], this trope is in effect. Legitimate concerns about certain groups may be classed as bigotry and legitimate objections to bigotry may be dismissed as idiotic.

* A general meta-instance of this can happen if one tries to explain a series with high levels of [[Mind Screw]] to someone who has no knowledge of it, particularly if they've actually asked for information. It's not uncommon for the reaction to a completely truthful answer about ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' or ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' to be something like, "You're just making all this up."

* Sadly invoked in many real life cases of bullying, you can tell your teacher about all the (often horrific) traumas that you suffer, but until you show up with a black eye/bleeding/seriously injured/found unconscious, don't expect anyone to believe you, and rarely for the bully to actually be disciplined. (And even then you'll be lucky if they ''do'' punish them.)

** [[wikipedia:Theresa Knorr|Terry Knorr]].

* How many of you actually believed that [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life]]? Huh? HUH?!

** Answer: the Germans did pretty much what they were expected to do, with two exceptions. No one on the British or French side expected the Germans to be stupid enough to attack the Line directly, so they knew they'd be forced to go around the north, and the two countries' plans were based on that (the reason the French built the Line was because, after the losses in World War One, they didn't have a large enough army to defend the entire border, so the goal was to force the Germans somewhere a defending force could be concentrated). The two surprises were the German paratroop attack on the Belgian fortress of Eben-Emael, the capture of which gave the Germans more room to maneuver and forced the Allies to hastily redeploy, and their attack through the Ardennes which was considered too dense to move effectively through. The real Cassandras were the advocates of armoured warfare, like DeGaulle, who realized that forcing tanks to merely be infantry support and spreading them out instead of concetrating them was not using them effectively.

*** A pity, because the French had some damned good equipment, especially the Char B1 (at 10-to-1 odds it would still come out on top against Panzer IIIs and IVs).

* Starting in 2000, financial analyst Harry Markopolos spent approximately eight years trying to warn the Securities and Exchange Commission that Bernie Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme. He went so far as to send them a detailed memo entitled "The World's Largest Hedge Fund Is A Fraud" that listed 29 reasons why he was suspicious of Madoff. The SEC paid very little attention to Markopolos, leaving Madoff free to keep swindling people out of their money until his 50 billion dollar Ponzi scheme finally collapsed in 2008.

** There was a documentary on the subject where a number of people had stated they saw this coming, but when they warned others, specifically in the Jewish community, they were shouted down for their statements because Madoff had kept up the appearances of being an affluent philanthropist, especially to charities geared at the Jewish community.

** Can you name a single example of a theory that was widely considered to be a "ridiculous conspiracy theory", that turned out to be right (and not so vague that it's easier to satisfy than the typical horoscope prediction)?

** Senator McCarthy's claims that the Communists had infiltrated the US government and Hollywood. While he was wrong about which individuals were the infiltrators, the 1991 declassification of various KGB records showed that he'd actually been right all along about the infiltration.

* During World War Two on the New South Wales South Coast there were once two brothers at a remote beach and they witnessed a Japanese submarine’s crew land to take on more water. The older brother hid the younger one while he ran off to the nearest police station to tell the authorities. The police did not believe him and locked him up over night while the other brother was still out there. Needless to say this story has become legendary in the local Eurobodalla Area

* Hussein Kamil Hassan al-Majid, Saddam's son-in-law and head of Iraq's WMD program defected in 1995. He told the world about the extent of Iraq's WMD programs, which was widely believed and widely reported. [http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/docs/unscom950822.pdf He also mentioned that the programs were destroyed.] [http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9509/iraq_defector/kamel_transcript/index.html He even told CNN that.]

* Former baseball slugger Jose Canseco wrote a book about his time in baseball which pointed the finger at several of his teammates taking steroids. He goes into detail about certain players, most of the All Stars, would go about using them. Due to Canseco's less-than-pleasant personality, this all was completely brushed off as him trying to make some money. Then came the Mitchell Report and it turns out Canseco was telling the truth.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Truth and Lies]]

[[Category:Seers]]

[[Category:The Index Is Watching You]]

[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]

[[Category:Depressing Tropes]]

[[Category:A Failure to Communicate]]