Sarcastic Confession: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Remember, kids, it isn't lying if you tell the truth in a sarcastic tone of voice!

We also do this with the premises of our favorite shows for fun: see [[Better Than It Sounds]].

 

 

Troper General's Warning: It is not recommended you try this in real life, particularly if you are being questioned by authorities. The world can be more [[Genre Savvy]] than TV seems to think.

 

* [[Haruhi Suzumiya]] does not believe Kyon because he has already established himself as a [[Deadpan Snarker]].

* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]!'', chapter 82:

* Early in ''[[FLCL]]'', Noata asks [[Manic Pixie Dream Girl|Haruko]] what she is. One of her sarcastic responses is [[Human Aliens|"I'm an alien"]].

 

* [[Batman]], as Bruce Wayne, was once called for jury duty and stated that he would not be a suitable juror because he was Batman, and helped apprehend the criminal. No-one believes him, because everyone knows [[Rich Idiot With No Day Job|Bruce Wayne is a fop and an utter dope]] (he later told Robin that, since he was under oath, he had no choice but to admit that he was Batman).

* In an issue of ''[[Justice League (animation)|JLA]]'', white Martians start controlling the minds of people in an attempt to ruin the lives of the Justice League. They force Dick Grayson to cut the Bat-Rope while Batman is dangling from it, send an angry mob after Jimmy Olsen, etc. One of their tricks is to briefly take control of Lois Lane while she and Clark are at the Daily Planet, and have her rip open Clark's suit and expose him as [[Superman]]. Immediately afterward she comes to her senses and tries to fix it via this trope. With Clark's super-speedy help she is able to make it look like a prank by ripping open an intern's suit as well, revealing that he suddenly has a [[Batman]] shirt underneath. However, when she attempts to continue the gag by ripping open her own shirt and exposing herself as [[Wonder Woman]] Clark isn't fast enough and she ends up just... exposing herself.

'''Betty:''' Oh well. Ask a silly question, get a silly answer. }}

** In another issue, Mary Jane's Aunt Anna confronts her with the evidence that Peter is constantly sneaking off at all hours and meeting with strange people, so obviously he's having an affair. MJ sarcastically explains that the real reason he does that stuff is because he's Spider-Man.

* Cormor from ''[[Dungeon: The Early Years|The Dungeon Series]]'' is an automaton and therefore cannot lie. At the beginning of his life, it gets him into all sort of trouble. After a few centuries, he's gotten good enough in Sarcastic Confession to build a whole life as an undercover automaton.

* ''[[Marvel 1602]]''. The Grand Inquisitor's messenger Petros is asked by King James of Scotland how he manages to carry a message from there to Spain and back in only a few days. His response? "[[Super Speed|I ran very fast, sir.]]" Naturally, King James remarks on how funny he is.

'''Security Guard''': Ha ha! Always with the jokes! }}

 

{{quote|'''Asuka:''' Look, boy and girls... men and women too... have rituals.

'''Rei:''' Rituals?

* In the ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'' fanfic ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4754499/1/To_See_You_Again To See You Again]'', when Yuriko's parents demand to know what's been going on for the past forty chapters or so, she says, {{spoiler|"[Kenshin] came through a [[Time Travel|time-warp]], and I'm the [[Reincarnation]] [[Reincarnation Romance|of his wife]]."}} plus {{spoiler|"I mean, he's not like a hundred and fifty!"}} Of course, this is exactly what happened. {{spoiler|Yuriko's father actually figured out it was the truth by the epilogue. He was cool with it}}.

* In the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' [[Peggy Sue]] fanfiction ''[[Oh God, Not Again]]'', Harry constantly tells the truth about how he knows certain things, stating specifically that no one would believe the truth anyway.

* At one point in the ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' fic ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5491874/7/Ghost_Zone_Experience Ghost Zone Experience]'', Maddie angrily tells Danny (when he's in his [[Secret Identity|ghost form]]) not to swipe their ghost hunting equipment (again). After [[Beat|a moment]], he cheekily replies with "Yes, mother."

{{quote|"Yes Raikage-sama. While I was in Konoha, I met people who can travel between dimensions, [[Peggy Sue|several people who came back through time to prevent Armageddon]], more than half of the jinchuriki in the world, learned of a secret organization that wants to take over the elemental nations, and met the creator of all the known universes in existence. It was a very enlightening experience."}}

 

** Of course, he also lied a handful of times in the same conversation. He's just a [[Manipulative Bastard]].

* In ''[[Bedknobs and Broomsticks]]'', Dr. Brown rants that the weakness of the criminal mind is "you tell them the complete truth and they'll believe nothing!" He says this ''right in front of'' the bad guys whom he proceeds to pull this on. [[Genre Blindness|They fall for it.]]

{{quote|"I'm an international terrorist wanted for bombings all over the world, and a lady-killer."}}

* In ''[[Closer]]'', Larry ask Alice (while she works as his stripper) what her real name is, and spends a good amount of money on it. She tells him it's Jane Jones. That being a rather unusual name, he doesn't believe her of course. At the end of the movie, we see her passport ...

* In ''[[Liar Liar]]'', Jim Carrey is cursed to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth (at least as he perceives it) for a whole day, and unable to lie by omission or even remain silent. Naturally, he is asked what he really thinks of his bosses right in front of them. He gets out of the situation by taking it so far over the top that everyone thinks he's roasting them.

* ''[[True Lies]]'' shows that even under a [[Truth Serum]], the bad guys don't believe Arnie when he says he's gonna kill 'em.

'''Jack Sparrow:''' Unless, of course, he knew you wouldn't believe the truth even if he told it to you. }}

** In ''On Stranger Tides'', Angelica tells Jack the truth about her being Blackbeard's daughter, but in such a way that he thinks she tricked Blackbeard into believing a lie.

{{quote|[She and her mother is watching TV. Her mother is engrossed in the show.]

'''Elin:''' [Out of the blue] Mom, I am a lesbian. I am a homosexual.

* In ''[[The Man Who Wasn't There]]'', Ed's wife is accused of murdering her paramour. Their lawyer is trying to come up with a story—any story—that might convince the jury that she didn't do it. Ed then relates the whole, unvarnished truth to his lawyer, telling him ''he'' did it in self defense because the victim saw through Ed's blackmail scheme and tried to strangle him. The lawyer's response? 'Bah! No jury would believe such a ''ridiculous'' story! You can't keep helping each other like this'. The crazy thing is that the lawyer doesn't hear the confession at all. He only hears a possible story to tell the jury, as it is story that won't work, he forgets it. The lawyer cannot even understand 'truth' 'lies' 'what really happened'. 'Reality' has no meaning for him, it is ALL only 'what will the jury believe'.

 

* Happens a few times in Terry Pratchett's ''[[Discworld]]'' books.

{{quote|Malicia rolled her eyes. "All right, yes," she said. "They got here and a talking cat helped us to feed them poison, and now they're locked in the cellar." The men looked at her. "Yeah, right," said the leader, turning away. "Well, if you ''do'' see them, tell them were looking for them, okay?" Malicia shut the door. "It's terrible, not being believed," she said.}}

* At the end of Patricia Briggs' ''[[Mercy Thompson|Mooncalled]]'', when asked about a large bruise, Jesse explains that her father had killed the one who gave it to her and it's laughed off, the questioner unaware that her father is the alpha of the local werewolf pack and really did kill the guy. Later, Mercy is asked about her broken arm.

{{quote|I remembered Jesse's method of telling the whole truth, and said, "I got knocked into a bunch of wooden crates by a werewolf while I was trying to rescue a young girl from the clutches of an evil witch and a drug lord."

* Subverted in [[G. K. Chesterton]]'s short story "The Worst Crime in the World", in which [[Father Brown]] accompanies a lawyer to visit the father of Captain Musgrave. The priest's niece is considering marriage with the captain, while the lawyer's firm is considering lending him money, so they're interested in his character (and whether his father is on good enough terms with him to leave him money). The father says that while he will leave his son the estate, he will never speak to him again, because his son committed "the worst crime in the world". {{spoiler|In fact, the captain had murdered his father just before they arrived, and was passing himself off as his father during the conversation.}}

* San does this in ''Zen and the Art of Faking It''.

* In [[Agatha Christie]]'s ''The Murder at the Vicarage'' (the first [[Miss Marple]] novel), {{spoiler|two characters give implausible confessions shortly after the murder, apparently in mutual attempts to shield each other}}. In fact, they are telling the truth but are not believed.

* Another [[Agatha Christie]] example: In ''Why Didn't They Ask Evans?'', the heroine, with the help of a doctor, decides to fake a car wreck in order to gain entrance to what she believes is the murderer's house. The results in the following exchange:

* Partially subverted in ''[[The Sword of Truth]]''. A nondescript man shows up at the Wizard's Keep and declares, "I am an assassin, sent by Emperor Jagang, to kill Richard Rahl. Could you direct me to him please?" As would probably happen in real life, the guards aren't sure whether to believe him or not, but they '''do''' assume that this guy is trouble somehow and treat him as a threat. The subversion is that his aim was to be taken prisoner and taken inside the Keep, which is what happens; at which point, he reveals that he is a wizard and starts kicking people's asses in an endeavour to do exactly what he said he would do. They beat him, but with difficulty.

* In Simon Hawke's ''[[Time Wars]]'' book ''The Zenda Vendetta'', one of the main characters is impersonating the protagonist of ''[[The Prisoner of Zenda]]'', who is supposed to be impersonating the kidnapped king of Ruritania. The king's fiancée comments that he's been acting strange and jokingly asks what he's done with the real king. The impostor replies, with perfect honesty, that the king has been locked up in Zenda Castle as part of a plot by his half-brother, and she tells him not to joke about something like that.

** Similarly, in ''[[Time Enough for Love]]'', Lazarus Long remarks that one of two ways to tell a lie artistically is to tell the truth in such a manner that no one actually believes you.

* In [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s ''Arrow's Fall'' (part of the [[Heralds of Valdemar|Valdemar series]]), the heroine Talia is imprisoned by the bad guys. When they learn the Valdemarans have found out their plans, they interrogate Talia as to how she informed them, and, aware that she will not be able to hold out under [[Cold-Blooded Torture]] indefinitely, she intentionally starts off by telling them a truth she knows they will not believe: "My [[Cool Horse|horse]] warned them."

* Alden Nowlan's poem "Fair Warning", where the author is detailing his imprisonment of his brother, explains why the poem exists:

{{quote|''I could confess to

* At the start of ''[[Night Watch|The Day Watch]]'' Alisa gets a lift to work, and tells the driver she's a witch who wants to turn people to darkness. He thinks she's joking and plays along. She later uses the same trick on a group of little girls she ends up looking after.

* In Al-Farabi's commentary on Plato's Laws, Al-Farabi claims that Plato is using this trope.

** This one is less about Snape not believing it, and more about him needing an excuse to pretend that he believes that Harry & Hermione couldn't have done it. After all, being a Hogwarts Professor, he already knew that Hermione had been using a time-turner all year long to attend more classes than she should be able to.

* Barbara Michaels' ''The Dancing Floor'' has a scene in which a member of a coven points out to the heroine that, since the authorities don't believe in witchcraft, a witch who killed someone by magic could ''brag'' about it and be perfectly safe as long as there was no way that witch could've done the killing ''without'' magic....

* Resident [[Magnificent Bastard]] Dirk Provin from Jennifer Fallon's ''The Second Sons'' trilogy does this more than once. Every time brilliantly and ''no one'' believes him. Most significantly, his friend straight up ask him what he was doing on one very suspicious afternoon: he tells her that he just sent a message for their mortal enemies to meet them at their destination so he can defect to them and rise to a position of power within a shadowy evil religious organisation that is dominating their country. She laughs it off and gets mad at him once she realises he was telling the truth. Of course it was what he ''left out'' that made her want to actively kill him out of sheer frustration: {{spoiler|that he single handedly put in place a to bring down the entire governmental and religious regime and completely uproot a corrupt and deadly power system that an entire war and the death of thousands of people couldn't stop}}. Suffice to say [[La Résistance|the resistance movement]] is mightily pissed off that the only person he told ''this'' particular plan to was a [[Obfuscating Insanity|mad]] mathematician with an opium addiction.

* In [[Gentleman Bastard Sequence|The Lies of Locke Lamora]], Lamora, in the middle of his current [[Bavarian Fire Drill]], first convinces one of the mark's employees to let him pass, then (once he has the mark's attention), ''yells'' at said employee for it, claiming, "I could've been a thief!" His goal: thievery.

* In a column included in the Harper Collins paperback edition of [[A Series of Unfortunate Events]], Lemony Snicket says that the best way to keep a secret is to tell it to everyone, but pretend you are lying.

* Played with in Chesterton's ''[[The Man Who Was Thursday]]''. Anarchist terrorists disguise their intentions by loudly proclaiming themselves as anarchists, thus encouraging onlookers to dismiss them as merely harmless boors. Backfires on one character, who accidently invokes the trope whilst trying to convince the protagonist he is the real deal. Subverted later when it turns out the ''anarchists'' {{spoiler|were actually [[Masquerade|police spies all along]]}}.

* From ''[[Heirs of Alexandria|The Shadow of the Lion]]'':

{{quote|'''Policeman:''' [I'm looking for] a boy. Rumor has it he lives somewhere in this area of the city. Dark curly hair.

'''Policeman:''' [I'd] just wondered if you'd seen him, Father Lopez.

'''Father Lopez:''' I did. When I see him again, I will tell him you're looking for him. }}

 

* ''[[Angel]]'':

** Used by {{spoiler|Cordelia}}, right to Angel's face, stating how she caused the entire first half of the season as a sarcastic confession.

* Sometimes used in ''[[Bones]]'', confusing Dr. Brennan.

* In ''[[Alias Smith and Jones]]'', Heyes and Curry find themselves accidentally impersonating two of the agents who are supposed to catch them. Another agent realizes they're not who they say they are and asks their real names. Heyes promptly says, "Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry", and the agent assumes they just don't want to tell him who they really are.

** {{spoiler|At the end of season three, Tyrol actually is revealed as a Cylon. So Cavil wasn't right after all. Of course, the final five explicitly are said to be not like normal [[Artificial Human|humanoid models]], and the others are explicitly not even supposed to think about them, so Cavil really ''hasn't'' seen them at the meetings.}}

*** And then that's double-subverted when we find out {{spoiler|Cavil knew who and ''what'' Tyrol was the entire time, since the Final Five ''created'' Cavil and the other "skinjobs", Cavil went [[Ax Crazy]], murdered the Final Five, had them Boxed upon resurrection, then let them out brainwashed just in time to witness the Colonial Holocaust...which the Final Five tried to avert forty years earlier. Messing with Tyrol was just part of his personal enjoyment of the whole thing, as he was the only being in existence who knew the truth.}}

* In Season Two of the US ''[[Big Brother]]'', "Evil Doctor Will" Kirby started out the game by literally telling ''everyone'' that he was untrustworthy, and that his strategy would be to lie, cheat, and steal from ''everyone else'' in the house, and backstab any so-called allies he might have as soon as there was profit to be had in betraying them. Everyone thought he was hilarious. Of course, this is exactly how he played the game and walked away with the prize.

* [[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]: In the series 3 episode "Second Skin", the crew has to infiltrate Cardassian space, sneak onto Cardassia Prime and rescue the kidnapped Major Kira from the jaws of the Obsidian. Since they need his help, they take Garak with them but he's supposed to be confined to crew quarters until they reach Cardassia. Odo drags Garak onto the bridge for lurking suspiciously around some phaser banks to be given a reprimand by Sisko. Garak sarcastically tells them that he was merely going for a walk because the quarters are making him feel claustrophobic. No-one believes him but the whole incident, including the length of the exchange caused by his sarcastic "lie" does the job of getting him onto the bridge and then keeping him there long enough for trouble with Cardassian checkpoints to occur in his presence so he can step in and solve the crisis before it gets out of hand. Then, in series 5, it's finally revealed that Garak was telling the truth about suffering from claustrophobia: he has a very acute form of the condition that utterly debilitates him when it flares up.

 

* Horribly subverted in the story of Samson and Delilah, in which he makes a confession he expects to be ignored, and it isn't.

 

 

* In ''[[Exalted]]'' the Sidereals have a charm (magic power), Avoiding The Truth Technique, just for doing this.

 

* At the climax of the film/play ''[[Arsenic and Old Lace]]'', Mortimer uses sarcasm combined with [[Refuge in Audacity]] to convince the police captain that his old aunts are crazy when they casually confess to having thirteen bodies buried in their cellar. It helps that they've just signed papers committing themselves to a mental institution.

* In ''[[Pygmalion]]'', Henry Higgens is successfully (if secretly) passing off Eliza as a Duchess at a grand Ball; when he himself is asked his opinion of her, he says she's just a poor flower girl.

* In the musical version of ''[[The Scarlet Pimpernel (theatre)|The Scarlet Pimpernel]]'', Sir Percy announces that he's the Scarlet Pimpernel in the middle of the royal ball, much to the amusement of all present.

 

* In ''[[Fahrenheit (2005 video game)]]/Indigo Prophecy'', at one point either Carla Valenti or Tyler Miles goes talk to Lucas Kane about the murder case. Then they show him a composite sketch of the killer (said sketch's accuracy depending on the player's actions earlier). The only way to avoid raising suspicion is an option marked "Joke" where he says, "That could be a lot of people I know. Heck, it could even be me!"

* Iori Yagami from ''[[King of Fighters]]'' sarcastically claims that despite his violent tendencies, Orochi blood, and generally being a [[Jerkass]], he hates violence. The fandom is torn as to whether or not his comment was sarcastic.

* From the last case of ''[[Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney]]'' : {{spoiler|"Surely, you aren't going to suggest I was responsible for poisoning her father, too?"}}

** And from Case 4 of ''[[Ace Attorney Investigations]]'' when {{spoiler|Calisto Yew says she is not Cece Yew's sister}}.

 

* On the ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' forums, someone once made a joke to the effect "The author'll have to {{spoiler|[[Apocalypse How|blow up the Milky Way]]}} next to top himself." The author responded, "[[Sure Why Not|Hey, I should write this stuff down!]]" A year or two later...

** Kevyn{{spoiler|'s time-clone}} managed to pull one off [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20100724.html here] by [[Crying Wolf]].

* ''[[The Awakened]]''

{{quote|'''Sue:''' Oh, yeah, and I'm kind of in love with you, but you never seem to notice.}}

 

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfAvN6rXdkM From] ''[[Superman: The Animated Series]]'', "[[Lobo|The Main Man]]":

{{quote|'''Lois:''' I'm confused, Kent. See, I've lived in Metropolis most of my life and I can't figure out how some yokel from Smallville is suddenly getting every hot story in town.

'''Doofenshmirtz-1:''' "I'm pretty sure that's what I sound like when I'm being sarcastic!" }}

 

* Remember that guy who tight-roped between the Twin Towers? When he was going though the airport to get there, a security officer naturally asked him what all the equipment was for. He told him. The officer laughed and let him through.

** Also as noted in the article, many an [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]] or [[Reasonable Authority Figure]] will avert this handily.

** Perhaps not "as well", but it works better than you might think if correctly executed... AND if one has a reputation for waxing absurd (though anyone who knows this troper well enough are aware that everything he says is "technically true", and pay closer attention).

* Once, a taxi driver asked a city newcomer checking out of a hotel if he had a dead body inside his heavy bag. The newcomer matter-of-factly answered yes, and the taxi driver laughed. The newcomer was [[wikipedia:Jeffrey Dahmer|Jeffrey Dahmer]].

* [[wikipedia:James Wilkinson|General James Wilkinson]], head of the US Army under Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, was long suspected of being in the pay of the Spanish crown—so much so that the General would jovially agree that he was a "Spanish pensioner" at social gatherings. Turns out, he ''was''.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Social Engineering]]

[[Category:Dialogue]]

[[Category:Truth and Lies]]

[[Category:Oh Great a Snark Index]]