Honesty Is the Best Policy: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"I want an iron-clad lifetime contract, along with a full wipe-the-fucking-record-clean pardon for any and all prior acts. I know you don't trust me. The beauty is that ''you don't have to''. [[Godzilla Threshold|Nothing I can possibly do will make shit worse than it is already.]]"''|'''[[The Unfettered|Caine]]''' (making his closing argument after [[The Reveal]] at the end), ''[[The Acts of Caine (Literature)|Caine Black Knife]]''}}

* The protagonist of [[Dragon Age: theThe Crown of Thorns]] can somehow pull this off even when he's setting up [[The Plan|plan after plan]] plus a {{spoiler|[[Zero-Approval Gambit]]}} on the side. He also manages to make people believe whatever he wants, like {{spoiler|Trian being dead when he isn't}} yet ''still'' avoids lying by phrasing his words as questions and hypotheses. That said, every one of his direct statements can qualify as [[Brutal Honesty]].

* While the [[Aesop's Fables (Literature)|Aesop's Fables]] that actually teach that "honesty is the best policy" are well-known, there's another, hilarious one in which someone tries to be [[Genre Savvy]] in this way and [[Wrong Genre Savvy|it backfires]]. Two men get kidnapped by apes and hauled before the ape king, where they see he's set up a whole court for himself with all the trappings of actual royalty. The "king" asks each man in turn what they think of him and his court. The first one sucks up to him about how magnificent he is, and is set free. His friend figures that if that's what you get for lying, the reward for telling the truth must be even better, and tells the ape he looks like a idiot pretending to be a real king and that he's not impressing anyone. The king naturally orders him executed. The moral of this one seems to be, "Don't go overboard."

* Moist von Lipwig in the ''[[Discworld (Literature)|Discworld]]'' novel ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Making Money|Making Money]]'' by Terry Pratchett. At least twice.

* The page quote comes at the end of the [[Xanatos Gambit]] the protagonist spent all of ''[[The Acts of Caine (Literature)|Caine Black Knife]]'' [[Xanatos Speed Chess|finagling]] into place. Caine has just royally screwed the [[Omniscient Council of Vagueness|Board's]] plans up. Their two choices are: reward him for sabotage and murder of one of their number by giving him a total pardon and more authority and free rein than they gave to the guys sent out to catch him, or permanently lose access to Overworld and possibly risk Overworld's most powerful empire marching over a portal with dragons and warmages to blast Earth into submission. Caine is happy to unveil all the details because he's not afraid to die and they have no alternatives.

* ''[[Magic: theThe Gathering]]'': When they meet for the first time in ''[[Magic: theThe Gathering (Tabletop Game)/Agents of Artifice|Agents of Artifice]]'', Nicol Bolas gives Jace Beleren a pretty frank explanation of how he lost control of the Consortium and his secret attempts to take it back. And then when Jace asks "Why are you telling me this?", he further explains that it made for a magnificent diversion to get him to let his mental guard down, and immediately launches a telepathic attack.

* In ''[[The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|Order of the Stick]]'', the Inter-Fiend Cooperation Commission play this technique beautifully on Vaarsuvius as part of a preplanned [[Batman Gambit]]. When they offer the elf near unlimited magical power, they are perfectly willing to explain the entire terms of service of their [[Deal Withwith the Devil]] up front, explain what they plan to get out of making the deal (but see below), and decline to produce an elaborate contract because, "Contracts are for people with something to hide." But the real clincher is that they are willing to point out an alternate route that Vaarsuvius could take to save his/her family without making the deal, confident that it wouldn't be chosen.

* Doc Scratch of ''[[Homestuck (Webcomic)|Homestuck]]'' is overt about this-- he tells people on many occasions that he never lies, and has never been seen actually contradicting that statement. As a near-"omniscipotent" being, he can see the entirety of any conversation or interaction (with a few "dark spots") prior to the actual initiation of the conversation, and sees no reason to lie to people about things he knows they are going to do.

* The first-season ''[[Gargoyles (Animation)|Gargoyles]]'' episode, "The Edge", where Xanatos reveals the entirety of his [[Xanatos Gambit|Gambit-of-the-week]] to a VERY irritated Goliath, as part of a ''second'' plan that has nothing to do with the first... and succeeds.