Implausible Deniability: Difference between revisions

== Anime & Manga ==

* ''[[Full Metal Panic]]'': No, Kaname, Sousuke is not following you. He decided to stop at the same cafe, take the same train and - when accidentally missing his stop that he just now decided to get off on (which is, coincidentally, the same as yours) - jump out the window of a moving train for entirely non Kaname-related reasons. Really, it's entirely coincidence!

* A delusional example occurs in the manga version of ''[[Chrono Crusade]]''. When Rosette confronts Joshua about his dependency on Chrono's horns, he responds "You're not Rosette. My sister was nice." After seeing a flashback of her ''half-strangling'' him when he (correctly) tells Chrono that her cooking is horrible, as well as eight volumes of watching her do things like [[Nun-Too-Holy|damage private property, abuse Chrono (at one point until he's lying in a pool of his own blood!), and calling her superior an "old hag"]], it's a tragic (and somewhat hilarious) illustration of how much of his memories he's lost.

* In ''[[Nagasarete Airantou]]'', Ikuto refuses to believe in magic, [[Agent Scully|no matter what he has seen.]] He assumes summoned spirits are just "creatures". One chapter has him partially transformed into an animal, which doesn't wipe his memory (unlike everyone who was fully transformed). Despite seeing friends look completely different and the changes to his own body, when he finally recovers, he believes it was just a dream. (Pitying friends try not to remind him of this.)

* A [[Running Gag]] in ''[[Saiunkoku Monogatari]]'' has [[No Sense of Direction|Ri Kouyuu]] coming up with ridiculously implausible explanations whenever he got lost.

== Fan Fiction ==

{{quote| [When [[Firefly|Inara]] and [[Doctor Who|the Doctor]] are {{spoiler|escaping from the enemy base}}].<br />

'''The Doctor''': You must be mistaken, Leftenant. The lady and I were just out for a stroll. You must have mistaken us for someone else.<br />

'''Security Mook''': Not so much. }}

* Happens with Leonardo in the last chapter of a very short [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]] Drabble-Fanfic titled ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3498384/1/Under_The_Influence Under The Influence]''.

{{quote| '''Halle''': We have reasons to believe Kira is an exceptionally talented and highly skilled genius member of the Japanese NPA's Cybercrimes division.<br />

'''Light''': Clearly, you must be talking about [[The Ditz|Matsuda]].<br />

''[[Description Cut|At that precise moment, Matsuda's printer viciously ate ten sheets of paper at once, choked on them, and died.]]'' }}

* At the end of ''[[An American Tail]]'', when Warren T. Rat's disguise is shot off and it becomes obvious he's a cat, he still tries to maintain the charade, with the line "Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?"

** And they got that line from [[Marx Brothers|Chico Marx]]. "Lady, who ya gonna believe, me or your lyin' eyes?"

* Played for laughs in ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: At World's End''. When Sparrow first sees Barbossa, he assumes he's hallucinating. Barbossa mentions that, last time they met, Sparrow shot him. Sparrow just looks at him for a moment, says, "No I didn't." and keeps walking.

* Subverted in ''[[The Incredibles]]'' when Dash puts a tack (drawing pin) on the teacher's chair, is caught on video tape and still gets away with it due to being almost too fast to see.

== Literature ==

* Several examples from the [[Discworld]] series:

** [[All Trolls Are Different|Trolls]] also tend to repeat "I never done nuffin" (They have learned that denying [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|specific things]] doesn't work as well.) when they suspect they may be in trouble. Coalface is quite emphatic in this regard.

** Detritus is the king of this. No of course he didn't nail that troll up by the ears for being the kind of scumbag that sells drugs to kids. Now, if you'll excuse him, he needs to go hide that hammer in his locker.

* There is a story told about the possibly fictional possibly real Mulla Nasreddin (the Muslim World's [[Trickster Archetype]]):

** A neighbour came to the gate of Mulla Nasreddin's yard. The Mulla went to meet him outside. "Would you mind, Mulla," the neighbour asked, "lending me your donkey today? I have some goods to transport to the next town." Having heard that that particular man was occasionally rather harsh with his own donkeys, the Mulla didn't feel inclined to lend out the animal to that him, however. So, not to seem rude, he answered: "I'm sorry, but I've already lent him to somebody else." All of a sudden the donkey could be heard braying loudly behind the wall of the yard. "But Mulla," the neighbour exclaimed. "I can hear it behind that wall!" "Who do you believe," the Mulla replied indignantly. "The donkey or your Mulla?"

== Live-Action TV ==

{{quote| '''George (as Blackadder's attorney):''' You are Private Baldrick?<br />

'''Baldrick:''' No!<br />

'''Lauren:''' Yeah, I was gonna do that anyway. }}

* Very common in the [[WWE]], and [[TNA]]. What makes it worse, is that their websites tend to side with the [[Heel|Rudo's]] lies and exaggerations, so a fan who didn't actually watch the event may believe them.

{{quote| '''Cat''': Did you see him clearly? Could you spot him in a parade? I don't think so. I could've been anybody.}}

* ''Paul Merton: The Series'' had a character doing a monologue explaining how he'd been falsely accused of a murder, but the evidence was so against him that he never had a chance: "Sure, the cops found me standing over the guy with a smoking pistol in my hand -- sure, sure. Sure, I had the motive. I had the opportunity. I even remember killing him! But you must believe me, I didn't do it."

* ''[[Glee]]'', or specifically Sue Sylvester, did this when her leaking of the New Directions set list to the opposing glee clubs.

{{quote| '''[[Archangel Lucifer|Lucifer]]:''' [incredulous] Did you just molotov my brother with holy fire?<br />

'''Castiel:''' Um... ''no.'' }}

{{quote| '''Sam''': I haven't done one bad thing this week! <br />

'''Mr. Howard''': Oh, please! I know you put that big snapping turtle in the teachers' toilet. <br />

'''Barney''': It's what I've been saying. }}

*** Subverted in that case - because he's the only one that had actually seen it, and watches it regularly, as revealed later.

** Similarly, many [[American Idol]] contestants [[Terrible Interviewees Montage|hideously fail their audition]] and immediately claim they were really [[Blatant Lies|"punking the judges."]]

* In an episode of ''[[Friends]]'', Phoebe tries to sneak a dog out of Monica's apartment in her handbag, but someone asks why her bag is moving. First she denies that it's moving, then says it's just her knitting. When the dog pokes its head out of the bag, she says, "Yes, I knit this. I'm very good."

* '' [[South of Nowhere]]'' opened one time with Ashley trying to sneak out of her girfriend Spencers room only to run into Spencers mother at the bottom of the stairs. Spencer, thinking on her feet, belted out: "Ashley, when did you get here?!"... while standing at the top of said stairs.

* ''[[Green Wing]]:'' This is a rather large part of Dr Alan Statham's character, especially when it comes to his "secret" relationship with Joanna. No, dove, there is no method of checking for broken bones which involves sucking on people's toes.

* ''[[Pixelface]]'': When Claireparker asks Rex if he's tearing out pictures of apples from a book and eating them again, Rex answers "No!" through a mouthful of paper.

== Theatre ==

== Video games ==

*** As Bluff defaults to Charisma, Haley has an advantage over 9 out of 10 of the population. [[Fridge Logic]]: why don't hot evil chicks run the entire setting?

** And then there's the [[Knights and Knaves]] puzzle, where one guy cannot speak the truth. So when Haley [[Cutting the Knot|solves the problem]] by shooting one of them (who happens to be the truthful one), the liar says "She did not just shoot you, and I totally expected it!".

* A dumpster full of Jeremy's stuff in ''[[Platinum Grit]]'' was pushed into the lake by ghosts. That's Nils' story and she's sticking by it.

* The main shtick of the [[The Men in Black|Man In Black]] from ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'' is applying this to his job of covering up the existence of aliens. [[Establishing Character Moment|His first appearance]] had him claiming aliens do not exist...to a group of Martians. Believe it or not, [[Serial Escalation|his later attempts have gotten more ludicrous.]]

== Web Originals ==

* In ''[[A Very Potter Musical]]'', Fudge refuses to believe that Voldemort is back {{spoiler|''even as Voldemort is killing him''.}}

{{quote| '''NC''': And I'm just like, "He's not dead, he's not dead, no no no, he's not dead" ''(rocks back and forth, crying and/or screaming)'' "PRIME!"}}

* ''[[Mitadake High]]''. The video tapes. They're not 100% accurate: one is correct, the other is just a random possible color, and there's no knowing which is which. But when there's only one person in game with a hair color mentioned on either tape and they still deny it...

** Of course, some people only look at one tape, and go after one person with that hair color because they haven't seen anybody else with that color hair. That person is very likely NOT the killer.

* In ''[[Thalias Musings]]'', Thalia tries this with Apollo when he asks for an explanation of the noise from a [[Wild Teen Party]]. She claims her sisters are just singing each other to sleep - [[Kesha|with a parody of ''Tik Tok'']].

{{quote| '''Bart:''' Maybe it was one of the other Barts.<br />

'''Skinner:''': THERE ARE NO OTHER BARTS! }}

** He will frame other people ''ahead of time'', convincing others that they did something he has not even done ''yet''. Usually Meatwad.

** Also, Frylock in "Super Birthday Snake." Shake, Meatwad, and Carl all return as zombies after Frylock killed them. When they call him out on it, he repeatedly insists that he [[Blatant Lies|didn't kill them]], even though they all know he did and they are standing ''right in front of him'' as zombies. The "Yes, you did," "No, I didn't," argument goes on for about a minute solid. For your amusement, seen [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjTdO5bNHj0 here].

* On [[Squidbillies]], Early's father lives and breathes this trope. Faced with the fact that he robbed the same bank 17 times in one day, he will interject "Allegedly!" and [[Metaphorgotten|launch into a pointless rant.]] Then he will say something that confirms his action start the same process again. Sometimes he will not even wait for someone to call him out on his "confession" before throwing out "Allegedly!" again.

* ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]:'' Candace-2 initially tries this in [[The Movie]] when she sees Phineas and Ferb with Phineas-2 and Ferb-2.

* ''[[Fairly Oddparents]]'': When Timmy creates a new radio persona known as "Double-T in the Morning", Vicky starts looking for him without knowing it's Timmy. When she finds Timmy in the radio station, Timmy says he's not Double-T, despite the flashing neon sign right above his head.

** That's straightforward Mafia honour. The basic philosophy was "if I die, I forgive whoever did this to me; if I don't, I'm gonna get better and come after him. No need for the cops to get involved."

** [[Homer|Odysseus strikes again!]]

{{quote| '''Fat Tony:''' Ah! Johnny Tightlips. How are you doing?<br />

'''Johnny Tightlips:''' I ain't sayin' nothin'.<br />

'''Johnny Tightlips:''' Whoa, Whoa, who says I have a mother? }}

* Morrissey's constant denial of being gay, despite many Smiths lyrics (written by him) being about homosexual experiences of his.

* Anorexic people will insist that they're fat even when they're as skinny as a weed. The tragedy of it being that due to their perspective being extremely distorted by the condition, it isn't a lie from their point of view. In some cases, though, many are aware of their condition but are told by their subconscious to keep fasting. Also, for some, fasting is not due to a wish to lose weight in particular but a demonstration of power and self-restraint.

* The Chinese government denies that the Tianamen Square massacre ever happened. Even with millions of videos and pictures of it circulating the web even today. Of course, people behind the "great firewall of China" don't get to see those videos and pictures...

* "In Iran, we do not have homosexuals like in your country. I do not know who told you that we have them." - Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, President of Iran

* There's an old story by Chuck Swindoll about a old man he knew who could never admit he was ever wrong. One memorable example was when he went into a shop and noticed a newly minted horseshoe, which had just been pulled out of the fire and was now cooling off inside a water tub. Old man reaches inside to pick it up and immediately burns himself and drops it. The shopkeeper asks, "That horseshoe was hot, wasn't it?" The old man responds, "No, it just doesn't take me very long to look at a horseshoe."

* During the 2011 Libyan uprising, a government official went on television to say that there was no uprising taking place in the country. Said [[Sarcasm Mode|non-existent]] uprising had been going on for six months by the time he got on TV, NATO is enforcing a no-fly zone, and numerous worldwide news stations are covering it.

* In Italy a driver was caught driving in the wrong direction for 30 km on an highway. The driver denied it.

* In one routine, comedian [[Chris Rock]] claims that this is the ''proper response'' when a man is caught cheating by his wife. Deny everything, no matter how much evidence she has...even if she catches you IN BED with the other woman, deny that it was you. Because, as Chris says, "sometimes it works."

* Sometimes a topic can be politicized to such a degree that denial of something is taken as an article of faith, despite extremely well-documented proof of otherwise. While there are many examples in this list that are fairly uncontroversially true where people have the freedom to say them and not be arrested for it, there are some issues that in some parts of the world are pure [[Flame Bait]], documentation notwithstanding. For example, [[Global Warming]] denial is extremely common in [[Useful Notes/The United States|The United States]], and [[World War II|Holocaust]] denial is extremely common in [[Useful Notes/Arab-Israeli Conflict|the Arab world]]. In these particular social circles, for reasons of ideology rather than documentation, these topics have developed extremely inflamed passions such that [[Implausible Deniability]] is considered a fundamental litmus test for social acceptability and inclusion. Ironically, even the [[Global Warming]] article here at [[TV Tropes]] has a [[No Real Life Examples, Please]] [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment|disclaimer]].