Sarcastic Confession: Difference between revisions

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** 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.

** In a strip from the Newspaper comic Jameson demands to know how Peter always gets such good photos of Spider-Man. Peter comes out and says it's because he is Spider-Man and Jameson kicks him out of the office complaining that he can "never get a straight answer out of Parker".

* 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.

* 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.

** Subverted when an inquisitor investigating the witchbreed insiders takes his statement at face value to use it as a confession.

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* 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 ''The Accidental Golfer'', Bruno at one point is asked by his wife who just called him. He says truthfully that it was his lover. "Haha." his wife sarcastically answers.

* In ''Road to Perdition'' a waitress asks Michael Sullivan and his son what they are doing in the middle of nowhere. Michael Sullivan Jr answers that they are bank robbers in an innocent voice. She treats this as a joke and doesn't look into the string of bank robberies following the gangster and his son across America.

* 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.

* In ''Creature with Atom Brain'' the forensic scientist, Chet Walker, is so annoyed by the press badgering him to give them details about the murder that he goes right out and tells them that the murder was committed by an undead monster with radioactive blood. They all get mad at him.

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"Ha-ha," he said in the exact same tone as I'd given his joke. "Must have been something stupid if you won't tell the truth." }}

* 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''.

** [[Nosy Neighbor|OLD LADY]]: You again! What are you doing this time? [[Deadpan Snarker|SAN]]: (poking around in a sandbox) I'm looking for [[Keeping Secrets Sucks|a place to hide]] my coat, gloves, and sneakers because [[Living a Double Life|everyone at my school thinks]] I'm a [[The Stoic|Zen master]]. Is that okay? OLD LADY: Sure. Just try not to hide them behind my invisible flying saucer, alright?

* 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.

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* In [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Stranger in A Strange Land]]''. When Jill smuggles the Man from Mars out of the hospital in a large trunk, a passing cop asks her what the trunk contains. She replies, truthfully, "A body"... he considers it a joke and lets her pass.

** 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."

** The narrative further mentions that this is specifically a part of her training as a Herald; she and her fellow trainees are previously warned that, subjected to enough torture, they ''will'' eventually break down and give up whatever information they're being tortured for, so the best precaution is to throw out so many lies, half-truths, and [[Sarcastic Confession|Sarcastic Confessions]] that no one will believe the truth when they hear it.

** 'Best' in the sense that the information (that may be obsolete in a few months) is kept safe. Perhaps not so good from the point of view of the torture victim, if they have hidden the truth so well they will not have any left to tell the torturer and therefore the torture will not stop.

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* [[Barbara Hambly]]'s ''[[Literature/The Windrose Chronicles|Dog Wizard]]'': When a wizard from another world is exiled to San Francisco and joins a dojo to keep up his sword fighting skills, he explains that his technique may be a bit unique as he is a wizard in exile from another world.

* In ''[[Young Wizards|DeepWizardry]]'', Nita reacts to a question from her little sister about where she and Kit have been all day with, "Turning into whales." {{spoiler|Subverted in that said little sister connects the dots with some other weirdness that's been going on, and her suspicions are not allayed in the slightest.}}

* Bit of an inversion in ''[[Dangerous Liaisons]]'': Valmont was having an affair with a woman whose bedroom was placed between her husband's and her lover's rooms. When she tried to go back to her room the door was locked. Valmont convinced her to scream loudly, then he broke down the door, letting her run into bed while pretending to the husband and lover that she had been screaming for some minutes before they heard her pretending that she woke up and thought there was an intruder. She was able to truthfully claim that she had never been so terrified.

* 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

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* 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....

* In [[The Dresden Files]], Harry Dresden appears on a talk show discussing magic (mostly whether or not it's real) alongside, among others, a Brazilian professor named Paolo Ortega, who maintains that "wizards" like Harry are just charlatans that use optical tricks and technology to sell their illusions, and quips to the audience that, with the proper preparation, he could appear to the audience to be a real live vampire. The audience laughs at the amusing joke. Guess what Ortega actually is?

* 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|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]]}}.

* In the world of [[Robin Hobb]]'s [[Realm of the Elderlings]], "the Wit", a magic allowing for communication with animals, is considered by many to be a vile sort of magic, justly punishable by death. In one scene in Fool's Errand, Fitz uses it to help him track a missing prince, his companion doesn't believe his lies as to how he managed it, and before thinking, he admits (sarcastically) that he could have used the Wit. Of course, Laurel didn't believe that, either.

* From ''[[The Shadowof 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.

'''Father Lopez:''' There are thousands of boys in Venice with dark curly hair. Doubtless I have this one hidden under a blanket in my cubicle.

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== Live Action TV ==

* ''[[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.

** Inverted by Angelus, who uses a sarcastic denial of guilt to torment his friends. He's discovered drinking a dead person's blood, and declares that it [[Not What It Looks Like|isn't what looks like]]. It isn't--he just found the corpse after it was killed by [[The Mole|the same mole as in the above example]], and was feeling peckish.

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* ''[[Psych]]'': When a criminal makes Shawn prove his [[Psychic Powers]] by telling how many fingers he's holding up behind his back, Shawn can see the fingers using an overly-elaborate series of reflections including a TV, mirror, and glass of water. When he tells the criminal that's what's going on, he, naturally, doesn't believe him.

* ''[[The Secret World of Alex Mack]]'': The ingredients in some exotic curry Alex ate have reacted with the [[Super Serum|GC-161]] to give her [[Super Strength]]. Unfortunately, it wore off exactly when she and her [[Secret Keeper|Secret Keepers]] were testing the ability, and Ray needs to bring her the rest of the curry so she can lift the Earth cat off her foot. When he finds her father about to eat the last of it, Ray grabs it, explains the above at [[Motor Mouth]] speed, and runs off.

** In another episode, Alex bribes her friend Louis into impersonating her for a doctor's visit. He manages to fool everyone, but ''almost'' spoils it at the end; when the doctor reveals that he plays up the [[Mad Doctor]] persona for his amusement, Louis angrily retorts that he was just pretending to be Alex Mack and the doctor fell for it.

* ''[[Seven Days]]'' has the main character explain the government [[Time Travel]] casually on live television, including the plots of several episodes. The reporter is fired for letting him on the air.

** It helped immensely that Parker, the main character, prefaced his statement with, paraphrasing, "They took me out of this insane asylum..."

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'''Clark:''' Because I can see right through the door, Pete.

'''Pete:''' Very funny, Sherlock. }}

* When the title character of ''Nurse Jackie'' urges doctor Coop to oppose the introduction of a pharmacy robot that'll put the pharmacist, Eddie, out of a job, he jokingly accuses her of having a "little crush on Eddie", to which she replies:

{{quote|'''Jackie:''' Yeah. That's it, Coop, I have a huge crush on Eddie. In fact, we fuck every day at noon. You're a moron.

''(cut to the clock in Eddie's pharmacy, where he and Jackie are fucking... at noon)'' }}

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* Invoked in ''[[Supernatural]]''; Sam and Dean need to be admitted into a mental ward for a case, so they earnestly explain to the doctor that they're monster hunters {{spoiler|who accidentally started the apocalypse.}} Naturally, nobody believe them {{spoiler|except the monster they're looking for, who tells them how stupid it was of them to do so.}}

* In the 3rd season premiere of ''[[Breaking Bad]]'', brother-in-law and DEA agent Hank is helping Walter move out of his home after a falling out with his wife. One black duffel bag is heavy, and Walter isn't supposed to do any heavy lifting. Hank insists, and feels the heft. "What have you got in there, cinder blocks?" Without a drop of [[Irony]], Walter replies, "Half a million dollars in cash." Hank only chuckles and says, "That's the spirit," not realizing that Walter actually does have half a million dollars in cash that he obtained by selling crystal meth.

** In a later episode, Hank is going through {{spoiler|Gale's lab notes}} and begins wondering who this "W.W." person is whom he praises. After joking that it might stand for Walter White, a nervous Walt puts his hands up and sarcastically says "All right, you got me.".

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "Underworld". The Doctor goes back to the planet to get rid of the fake race banks, which are actually bombs. He travels all the way back to where he can get captured again (rather than just leaving them on the surface) so it's obvious that he planned to have them taken from him, yet when forced to give them up, he explains that they are really bombs. "You can do better than that..." replies a villain and confiscates them. The bombs blow up the planet, of course.

* In ''[[The Office]]'', a series of suspicious mouse-clicks and taps leads Dwight to believe that Jim and Pam are talking about him behind his back in Morse code. Jim says, sarcastically, that yes, new parents Jim and Pam used their very limited time and money to learn Morse code specifically to mess with Dwight.

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'''Joe:''' Okay. I slept with her.

'''Brian:''' Liar. }}

** Just for the record, Joe {{spoiler|didn't sleep with her}}.

* In the ''[[Due South]]'' episode "Hawk and a Handsaw", Fraser manages to get himself committed to a psych ward (intentionally--he's going undercover) simply by showing up in full dress uniform and telling the precise truth about his past.

{{quote|'''Psychologist''': So you're a Mountie are you?

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** In 1x03, [[Gene Hunt Interrogation Technique|Gene Hunt]] offers a room full of mill workers a fiver to name the murderer. One of them points out a friend, who agrees, identifying the first man as his accomplice. The laughter dries up when [[Only Sane Man|Sam Tyler]] orders them both arrested and charged.

** In 2x06, Simon Lamb confesses to the murder of a student. Since his family's been kidnapped by someone demanding the release of the person convicted of the student's death and he's clearly distraught, the police dismiss his confession out of hand. Turns out...

* Inverted in [[Skins]] when Emily came out of the closet. When her father asked what she had been doing that afternoon, she answered with perfectly honesty that she had had sex with her girlfriend, but her dad assumed that she was being sarcastic and apologized for snooping.

* In ''[[Revenge (TV series)|Revenge]]'', Emily's friend Ashley warns her that Emily is suspected in a prank that resulted in all of the Hamptonite women having their secrets revealed in public. Emily points out that she was a victim too, then confesses, "That's exactly what I wanted. All my most embarrassing confessions [about my boyfriend] broadcast for all the world to see."

* ''[[White Collar]]'':

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* The ''[[Tales (series)]]'' likes this one. At least once every game, one of the characters will reveal their tragic and touching emo backstory with fanfare... and then, having elicited sympathy from the rest of the party, they'll proceed to claim they were "just kidding".

* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] IV: Oblivion'' features a quest where you have to kill everyone at a party, [[Agatha Christie]] style. When you introduce yourself, one of the conversation options is "I'm an assassin, sent to kill you.", which just earns you a laugh -- "Well, I'm glad someone has a sense of humour about this event." -- and immediately maxes out her disposition toward you.

* 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.

** This is implied to be genuine. He holds a deep hatred towards his father for making him what he is today; his initial hostility towards Kyo stems from the their clan rivalry, and Iori figured that killing Kyo (his father's intention apparently) would end his suffering.

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

* Basic premise of the Comet, the tabloid newspaper for which our protagonists work in ''Scandal Sheet!'' As Detweiler, the editor-in-chief, puts it, "We operate on two principles. First, that the most artistic way to lie is to tell the truth so unconvincingly that people are sure you are lying, and second, the best place to hide a needle isn't a haystack -- it's a [[Needle in A Needle Stack|big pile of other needles]]." As it turns out, {{spoiler|the Comet actually employs a sasquatch named Phil and regularly gets information from a vampire named Samantha. They consider it their role in life to protect the rare and endangered supernatural beings of the Earth from being discovered and exploited by others. As such, most of the stories in the paper are made-up crap, but some of them are true -- no journalist with any self-respect at all will pursue them, though, since it's well-known that once it's been in the Comet, it can't possibly be correct.}}

** [[Men in Black (film)|So, Agent K was right about tabloids?]]

* Haley of ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' uses a variant of this [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0129.html here,] where she tells the truth entirely, but everyone assumes she's lying, which she takes advantage of for profit.

** Why, that's a [[Batman Gambit|Batman]] [[Sarcastic Confession|Confession]]!

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** Later in "Out With The In Crowd", Larry and Tuddrussel try to hide Otto from fellow officers J.T. Laser and Lance 9 Trillion, they nervously laugh him off saying- "Well he's certainly not an orphan we've borrowed from the Twentieth century."

* In ''[[Danny Phantom]]'', [[Big Bad|Vlad]] does this a lot, particularly in [[The Movie]], where he several times admits he's a diabolical supervillain, takes a pause, and then joins in the laughter at that [[Villain with Good Publicity|utterly ridiculous idea]].

* Hilariously inverted in the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "Ladder to Heaven." God catches Saddam Hussein building a "chocolate-chip cookie factory" and, suspecting that the dictator is actually building a nuclear weapons plant, calls him out on it. Saddam immediately denies it, whereupon God comments that "it looks like a weapons plant to me." "Come on, God," Saddam argues. "If I were really gonna do that, I wouldn't make it ''look'' like a weapons plant. I'd make it look like [[Irony|a chocolate-chip cookie factory, or something!"]] "Well, I guess you're right," God admits, and then God leaves - causing Saddam to smirk and mutter: "Stupid asshole...."

* On an episode of ''[[Gargoyles]]'', a robbery attempt goes sour when the cops show up. A woman known to the crooks as "Sally" angrily demands to know who called the police. When no one owns up to it, she shrugs and says "Well, I guess it was me!" It was. "Sally" was actually Detective Elisa Maza in disguise.

* Inverted (and combined with [[Crying Wolf]]) in the [[Regular Show]] episode "Grilled Cheese Deluxe". After an episode of competing to see who was the better liar, Benson demands to know what happened to mangle his sandwich so. Rigby excitedly gives a garbled, but truthful, explanation of the rather fantastic events between Benson discovering the theft of his first sandwich, and the current one being placed in his hands; Benson chews him out for lying. Mordecai, worn out and frustrated, drops a much shorter and more plausible lie, and Benson says, "There. Now wasn't it so much easier telling the truth?"

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* There is a story about a Jewish sympathizer in Nazi Germany who was hiding Jews in her home. When the police came by and questioned her as to whether there were any fugitives in her house, she answered [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|"Yes there are, under my kitchen table!"]] Since there was obviously nobody under her kitchen table, they figured she was crazy and left. They did not check for the trapdoor under the rug under the kitchen table.

** The above example comes from the biography of Corrie ten Boom, and it was her sister hiding her brother from the German press gangs.

** And it was the sister's young daughter who told the truth. She wasn't being sarcastic - her family in usual circumstances just put a high value on honesty.

* Someone known to be a [[Deadpan Snarker]] has a much higher chance of pulling it off since scathing sarcasm is their usual way to respond to almost anything.

* 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]].