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Metaphorically True: Difference between revisions
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== [[Literature]] ==
* ''[[Discworld]]'':
** In ''[[Discworld/Small Gods|Small Gods]]'', Vorbis explains to Brutha that the claim that the Omnian priest sent to convert the Ephebians was killed by these ungodly savages represents a "deeper truth". According to Vorbis, this is ''much truer'' than the mundane truth, that the Ephebians listened, threw vegetables, then sent him away, and he was killed by the Quisition as an excuse to start a holy war.
** In ''[[Discworld/A Hat Full of Sky|A Hat Full of Sky]]'', "never lie, but don't always tell the truth" is among the pieces of advice Miss Tick gives Tiffany.
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* In Robert Jordan's ''[[Wheel of Time]]'' the Aes Sedai tried to get people to trust them by swearing an unbreakable oath to "Speak no word that is not true". If you think about it, this oath is meaningless. Individual words have no inherent truth value; it's phrases that can be untrue. [[Fridge Logic]] aside, in the books it does prevent them from directly lying. But the Aes Sedai think they have [[Omniscient Morality License]] (even though they are actually fairly complacent and ignorant), so they see all their oaths as unfortunate restrictions rather than moral standards to adhere to, so this trope and [[Literal Genie|other]] [[False Reassurance|deceptions]] abound. People realize this and anyone likely to deal with the Aes Sedai is warned to pay close attention because "The truth they speak may not be the truth you think you hear."
** And they STILL manage to complain about people (mostly the male main characters) not trusting them! If you think about it, it's actually bordering on [[Fridge Brilliance]]. While it's true that individuals words cannot be untrue, it has been demonstrated that what the Aes Sedai believe is the crucial factor (as an Aes Sedai can say something that is not true if they believe it to be true). If the Aes Sedai believe that is it possible to speak an untrue word (and based on their actions it's clear that most of them don't possess even a basic understanding of logic), then they can't.
** It also doesn't help that they've believed and thus proclaimed a number of important things which are sporadically provable to be false (such as the existence of traitors within their order), so random people over the centuries have ''heard'' Aes Sedai "lie" to their faces. And as there's a fairly simple and obvious way to remove the oaths, and Aes Sedai culture involves keeping individual discoveries like that to themselves, there have probably been any number of non-traitorous Aes Sedai over the years who can and do lie as well. Even if the Aes Sedai are willfully blind to it, somebody's bound to notice eventually.
*** Non-Black Ajah Aes Sedai using the Oath Rod to remove the Oaths? [[Flat What|What.]] Not if every single Aes Sedai's reaction to the idea of unBinding themselves (either forever, or just at retirement) is any guide: "When I was a little girl, I dreamed of becoming Aes Sedai. From the day I reached the White Tower, I tried to live as an Aes Sedai. I have lived as an Aes Sedai, and I will die as an Aes Sedai. This [unBinding at retirement] cannot be allowed!"
* In a novel by [[Albert E Cowdrey]], a megalomaniacal criminal wants revenge on the human race for his imprisonment. Before he's allowed out of prison, he's asked a few questions, and there's a machine that can tell whether he's telling the truth or not. When asked if he regrets his behavior, he says yes (meaning he regrets that his mistakes got him caught). When asked if he wants to harm anyone, or something like that, he says "I do not wish to harm any human individual."
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* On ''[[Misfits]]'', a show about a bunch of "problem teens" on community service <ref> who develop superpowers</ref>, the inevitable conversation soon arises - "what did you do to end up here?" While most of them admit to plausible-sounding crimes (drunk-driving, arson, drug possession etc) Nathan constantly insists - to the point where it becomes a [[Running Gag]] - that all he did was steal some "pick'n'mix". As we later find out, the incident actually did ''start'' with him stealing some sweets. He neglected to mention, however, that (in a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]]) he subsequently ran riot in the bowling alley, trying to hurl himself down the back of one of the bowling lanes and causing a fair bit of criminal damage. When he was finally restrained he refused to pay for the damages (or co-operate in the slightest), persistently mocked the security guard and eventually attacked the guy with a stapler.
** However, it's entirely possible that Nathan really doesn't think he did anything wrong beyond eating the pick'n'mix.
* In ''[[Blake's
{{quote|'''Tarrant:''' If he’s not on the ship, I don’t know where he is.
'''Caliph:''' How tall is he?
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** In one early episode of ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]]'', Tuvok tells Chakotay that he is always honest, to which Chakotay points out that he wasn't being honest when he pretended to be a Maquis in order to infiltrate Chakotay's ship. Tuvok then counters that he was being honest to his principles and within the defined parameters of his mission. Chakotay recognizes this as a load of crap.
** In another episode, he flat out lies to intimidate a prisoner. Janeway bluffs that she is gonna send the prisoner off to some people she's scammed (the prisoner, not Janeway). She asks Tuvok to tell her about the conditions of that world's prisons, and Tuvok wildly invents a tale of deplorable conditions where most prisoners don't survive long enough to be put on trial. The prisoner knows just enough about Vulcans to believe the story that they never lie, so she caves in.
*** The trick is that in both these cases, Tuvok had a perfectly logical reason to lie. We might reasonably assume that most Vulcans would not lie, for example, to spare a friend's feelings, or get out of a tedious duty, and other species would remember those instances of honesty as unusual, even extreme.
* Deconstructed in [[The Wedding Bride]], a fake movie from [[How I Met Your Mother]] about {{spoiler|Stella's failed relationship with Ted from her ex-boyfriend's perspective, making ''him'' the good guy getting [[The Woobie]] Stella out of a loveless marriage, when in reality, it was nothing like that.}} We see the real reaction of {{spoiler|said guy who was left at the altar, Ted.}}
* In ''[[Farscape]]'', Crichton hits on this trope as a way of fooling the Scarran heat probe, which forces people to tell the truth. For example, while disguised as a Peacekeeper defector, he tries to get access to his captive Sebacean girlfriend by propositioning a Sebacean nurse, and he gets caught by a Scarran:
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* Hugo Boss made uniforms for the SS. This is true. However, for most people this conjures up an image of a large fashion house aiding the most evil regime of all time. This is not true. In 1936, Hugo Boss was a fairly small family-run business whose main source of income was making uniforms for the German Postal Service, that just happened to land a highly lucrative government contract.
** The implication of "Hugo Boss" (today being a major fashion house) is also often that the company was the sole designer and supplier of the uniforms, when in fact they were designed by the government and production farmed out to many other companies as well.
** Similarly, [http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/fanta.asp it is true that Fanta was invented in Nazi Germany]. However, it is ''not'' true that Fanta was invented ''by'' Nazi Germany, as in following some order or plan envisioned by the Nazi government, as it is often reported.
* "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." --[[Bill Clinton]] (See [[Technical Virgin]]) and "The government does not torture people" --[[George W. Bush]] (See [[Enhanced Interrogation Techniques]])
** To make that first one better (or worse), the definition of "sexual relations" set for the purposes of the hearing was such that it was ''definitely'' true... technically speaking.
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* "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work liberates"), posted at the gates of Nazi concentration camps. It did liberate the worker...of his life.
* Politics as a whole can rest on this; for example, take this example of a [http://twitter.com/#!/TomHarrisMP/status/12848387174965249 British MP] claiming that his party had not broken an election promise, as the law would not take effect until after the next election (but was voted on comfortably three years into Parliament).
* There's a free picture that comes on some iPod Touches that says "I didn't slap you, I high-fived your face." Technically true, since in a high-''five'' only one hand needs to be involved.
* A billboard for [[Rebecca Black]] touted that her ''[[Friday (song)|Friday]]'' video had over 100 million views on [[YouTube]], trying to make it look like she was popular. While the part about the views is true, most of the people who watched it clicked the dislike button.
** Similar thing happened for [[Mass Effect 3]] - the developer claims that its conclusion "has provoked a bigger fan reaction than any other video games' conclusion in history". It's true. They fail to mention, however, that it was a hugely ''negative'' reaction.
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** The same story is told in most of Europe in regards to soldiers signing up in WWI and WWII.
* [[The Other Wiki]] has an [[wikipedia:Doctrine of mental reservation|article]] on this sort of deception, mostly on the history of those who, for religious reasons, employed it as the result of [[Will Not Tell a Lie|being technically unwilling to lie]].
* In a US election speech, Ronald Reagan declared that if he was elected President, there would be "no new taxes". Well, he was elected and true to his word, there were no new taxes....but the population of the US got very irate over the fact that he raised all of the ''existing taxes''...
** Ofcourse while making the statement he honestly thought that the government didn't actually need taxes and was just leeching from honest businesses. Then he got in charge and the truth dawned to him.
* An old standby for people making a journey - "We're not lost; I know exactly where we are....I just don't know where we are in relation to where we want to be". Or "We're not lost; I know exactly where we are....right here."
* Before being revealed as Watergate scandal source [[Deep Throat]], W. Mark Felt stated "I never leaked information to Woodward and Bernstein or anyone else!" This is actually logically true; since he met only with Bob Woodward, he could not have met with Woodward AND anyone.
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