Snowball Lie: Difference between revisions

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* When Hokuto arrives at [[Cromartie]] and finds out his dad doesn't actually run the place, he claims that said dad is in fact the shadow emperor of Japan. So what's Hokuto doing here? Um... his goal is to ''fight'' that evil emperor, of course. So he's planning to fight his own father? Um... yes! The lie snowballs at incredible speed, mostly because Kamiyama and Hayashida believe everything they're told.

* ''[[Paranoia Agent]]'': {{spoiler|The whole plot}}

* ''[[~~Death Note (Manga)|~~Death Note]]'': The entire series is based on Light Yagami's elaborate, psychopathic plots to deceive police and detective forces that he is ''not'' a serial killer... until {{spoiler|it all blows up in his face, his cover is blown, and he dies.}}

* ''[[Death Note]]'': The entire series is based on Light Yagami's elaborate, psychopathic plots to deceive police and detective forces that he is ''not'' a serial killer... until {{spoiler|it all blows up in his face, his cover is blown, and he dies.}}

== Fan Fic ==

* ''[[Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality (Fanfic)|Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality]]'' discusses this in the chapter appropriately titled "[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/65/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality Contagious Lies]".

* [[~~Princess Celestia Hates Tea (Fanfic)|~~Princess Celestia Hates Tea]]: Celestia lied to Luna that she enjoyed the Tea Brewer she gifted her with, in order to spare her feelings. The problem? That was a few thousand years ago, and as an immortal [[Physical God]], Celestia has had millenia to continue drinking all the tea her loving subjects have been giving her, even though she still can't stand the stuff. It's safe to say it causes an avalanche instead of a snowball when she reveals she doesn not, in fact, enjoy tea.

* [[Princess Celestia Hates Tea]]: Celestia lied to Luna that she enjoyed the Tea Brewer she gifted her with, in order to spare her feelings. The problem? That was a few thousand years ago, and as an immortal [[Physical God]], Celestia has had millenia to continue drinking all the tea her loving subjects have been giving her, even though she still can't stand the stuff. It's safe to say it causes an avalanche instead of a snowball when she reveals she doesn not, in fact, enjoy tea.

== Film ==

* In [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s ''[[North By Northwest]]'', the main character runs into trouble when {{spoiler|enemies of the US mistake him for the fake person created by the CIA to throw their attention off the trail of the real CIA agents}}.

* In [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s ''[[North by Northwest]]'', the main character runs into trouble when {{spoiler|enemies of the US mistake him for the fake person created by the CIA to throw their attention off the trail of the real CIA agents}}.

* The plot of the great movie ''Picture Perfect'' revolved around this. No, the ''other'' ''[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114130/ Picture Perfect].''

* In the obscure 2005 [[Robin Williams]] film ''The Big White'', he plays a man in Alaska with a mentally ill wife and they're on the brink of bankruptcy. He finds a corpse in a dumpster and passes it off as his long-lost brother to get an insurance claim. But he's hounded by an investigator who knows something's up, and he has to pile on lie upon lie. And just when he thinks he's gotten away with it, the two men who dumped the corpse want it back, and the real long-lost brother shows up.

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* In ''[[Ghostbusters]]'' Walter Peck accuses The Ghostbusters of using hazardous wastes, later on he claims them to be snowball artists. Ironically he himself is a Snowball liar even blaming them for the explosion he caused at their headquarters.

** Technically, he blames their faulty equipment. That's like saying "The reason that the house burned down is because the sprinkler system didn't work!" after you went and shut off the main water valve. He truly and firmly believed that the Ghostbusters were con artists, and the fact that all their work dried up between the movies (since they wiped out the thing that was riling all the ghosts up) got everyone else to believe it too... Despite the ''gigantic marshmallow man that had been stomping around downtown.''

* In ''[[~~Easy A (Film)|~~Easy A]]'', [[Emma Stone]]'s character lies to her best friend that she has a date to get out of spending the weekend with the latter's nudist parents. The friend immediately assumes sex was involved, and the conversation is overheard by an uber-Christian girl who makes it her mission to turn everyone in school righteous. Instead of stopping the rumors, the protagonist chooses to perpetuate them, as it makes her insanely popular in school. Then [[It Got Worse]].

* In ''[[Easy A]]'', [[Emma Stone]]'s character lies to her best friend that she has a date to get out of spending the weekend with the latter's nudist parents. The friend immediately assumes sex was involved, and the conversation is overheard by an uber-Christian girl who makes it her mission to turn everyone in school righteous. Instead of stopping the rumors, the protagonist chooses to perpetuate them, as it makes her insanely popular in school. Then [[It Got Worse]].

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* ''[http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2008/04/14/080414fi_fiction_boyle The Lie]'' by T.C. Boyle starts with a guy who just wants a day off work. [[It Got Worse|It gets worse.]] By the end, he's told everyone that {{spoiler|his baby daughter is dead}} (not even remotely true) and the fallout from that leads to {{spoiler|him abandoning his family and his job}}.

* ''Nothing But the Truth'' by [[Avi]] is a YA novel consisting entirely of this trope (although part of the point is that the whole thing originates from truth-stretching and self-serving bias, not an outright lie).

* In ''[[The Paladin (~~Literature~~)|The Paladin]]'' by [[~~CJ Cherryh|~~C.J. Cherryh]], [[Master Swordsman]] Shoka allows some villagers to believe that his student {{spoiler|and lover}} Taizu is {{spoiler|a demon}}; the story quickly spreads and takes on a life of its own.

* In ''[[The Paladin (novel)|The Paladin]]'' by [[C. J. Cherryh]], [[Master Swordsman]] Shoka allows some villagers to believe that his student {{spoiler|and lover}} Taizu is {{spoiler|a demon}}; the story quickly spreads and takes on a life of its own.

* [[George Orwell]]'s ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'' runs on this trope. Most of recorded history has been replaced by a vast and intricate institutionalized network of Snowball Lies, and there's no way to tell which parts of the record are true and which are entirely made up. What's more, the government [[Retcon|changes the records at will]] to whatever suits their current purposes. And of course, everybody just goes along with it [[Only Sane Man|except for the protagonist.]]

** Orwell used it again in [[Animal Farm]], where the ruling class of the titular farm were pigs. One, Napoleon, had his followers turn on his rival. He then proceeded to sell blatantly false and ever-expanding stories of his rival's duplicity and treachery in order to secure more and more power for himself and his cronies. His rival? Snowball. Any similarities to real persons in certain [[Russian Revolution|socialist revolutions]] is entirely intentional.

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** One other classic moment occurs at the height of this [[Snowball Lie]]: when Martin's dog comes into the room and the boyfriend asks what the dog's name is, the characters all look at each other nervously for a few seconds before realizing there's no reason to lie about his name, and say "Eddie" in unison.

* Jeff's wooden leg, among oh so many others (usually involving the same character), in ''[[Coupling]]''.

* In one ''[[~~Threes~~ Company]]'' episode, Teri doesn't want to have an important man over for dinner, believing that he's sexually interested in her. Jack suggests that she tell him the "little white lie" that she's married. But when that doesn't deter the guy, the "white lie" quickly expands, leading to Jack having to pose as her husband with a broken leg and Janet and Larry pretending to be French people who don't understand a word of English. And ''then'' Jack's [[Girl of the Week]] shows up and he explains it to the man's wife by claiming that his marriage with Teri is on the rocks...

* In one ''[[Three's Company]]'' episode, Teri doesn't want to have an important man over for dinner, believing that he's sexually interested in her. Jack suggests that she tell him the "little white lie" that she's married. But when that doesn't deter the guy, the "white lie" quickly expands, leading to Jack having to pose as her husband with a broken leg and Janet and Larry pretending to be French people who don't understand a word of English. And ''then'' Jack's [[Girl of the Week]] shows up and he explains it to the man's wife by claiming that his marriage with Teri is on the rocks...

* In the ''[[MASH|M* A* S* H]]'' episode "Bombshells", Hawkeye and Winchester start a lie which soon has the entire army thinking Marilyn Monroe is paying the 4077th a visit.

** Also, [[Invented Individual|Tuttle.]]

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* This is a regular feature of [[As Time Goes By]], particularly in any episode where Jean is trying to avoid becoming the target of her officious and patronising sister-in-law's pity (or intervene in Judith, Sandy and/or Alistair's love lives...). Lionel invariably protests and tries to avoid participation, but if it's a Penny (sister-in-law) [[Lies Snowball]], he will never quite manage to get free of it.

* Sometimes occurs whenever Sheldon is involved in a lie in ''[[Big Bang Theory]]''; not because maintaining the lie actually requires this, but because Sheldon becomes neurotic and ''thinks'' it does. On one memorable occasion, he even brought in someone to stay in their apartment acting as Leonard's [[Invented Individual]] junkie cousin because he thought his original plot -- that they were trying to get him into rehab -- was implausible.

* In the ''[[Fraggle Rock]]'' episode "Boober's Quiet Day", [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|Boober hopes to have a nice quiet day]]. When his friend Tosh asks him for a favor that would ruin his quiet day, he lies that he is going on a trip. Then he has to ''actually'' go on that trip when Mokey asks him to bring something back for her... The lie keeps growing and growing until eventually Boober is forced to pretend to be an Old Gypsy Lady. When the web of lies finally collapses, and the other Fraggles ask Boober why he lied so much, he says "BECAUSE I WANTED TO HAVE A NICE QUIET DAY!" To which Gobo replies... [[We Could Have Avoided All This|"Why didn't you just ask?"]]

* In the ''[[Fraggle Rock]]'' episode "Boober's Quiet Day", [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Boober hopes to have a nice quiet day]]. When his friend Tosh asks him for a favor that would ruin his quiet day, he lies that he is going on a trip. Then he has to ''actually'' go on that trip when Mokey asks him to bring something back for her... The lie keeps growing and growing until eventually Boober is forced to pretend to be an Old Gypsy Lady. When the web of lies finally collapses, and the other Fraggles ask Boober why he lied so much, he says "BECAUSE I WANTED TO HAVE A NICE QUIET DAY!" To which Gobo replies... [[We Could Have Avoided All This|"Why didn't you just ask?"]]

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== Video Games ==

* Thanks to the [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]] nature of the universe in ''[[~~Planescape Torment|~~Planescape: Torment]],'' a snowball lie can cause quite a lot of unintended consequences, up to and including creating a ''[[Invented Individual|entirely new person]]'' out of an alias the Nameless One uses.

* Thanks to the [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]] nature of the universe in ''[[Planescape: Torment]],'' a snowball lie can cause quite a lot of unintended consequences, up to and including creating a ''[[Invented Individual|entirely new person]]'' out of an alias the Nameless One uses.

* The ''[[Persona 2]]'' rumor systems can work on the Snowball lie in the same fashion as the ''Planescape'' example.

* In [[Final Fantasy XIII]], {{spoiler|Vanille}} cannot bear to tell the truth to {{spoiler|Fang}} about their Focus, fearing the latter's reaction to {{spoiler|becoming Ragnarok}}. Because of this, {{spoiler|the two of them end up attacking the Bodhum Fal'Cie in an effort to trigger their memories}}, which leads to {{spoiler|Serah and Dajh becoming L'Cie}}. Thus, had {{spoiler|Vanille}} told the truth in the first place, the ''entire plot of the game'' would never have happened.

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== Western Animation ==

* In a classic episode of ''[[The Simpsons]]'', Bart creates a [[Snowball Lie]] about a boy named Timmy O'Toole being stuck down a well. When things get out of hand, he tries to kill the [[Snowball Lie]] before everyone finds out he was behind it, and gets ''himself'' stuck down the well in the attempt. The public is apparently so disgusted with his deceit, [[Can't Get Away ~~With~~ Nuthin'|they almost decide to leave him down there]].

* In a classic episode of ''[[The Simpsons]]'', Bart creates a [[Snowball Lie]] about a boy named Timmy O'Toole being stuck down a well. When things get out of hand, he tries to kill the [[Snowball Lie]] before everyone finds out he was behind it, and gets ''himself'' stuck down the well in the attempt. The public is apparently so disgusted with his deceit, [[Can't Get Away with Nuthin'|they almost decide to leave him down there]].

** Fortunately, Sting (the singer, not the wrestler) was willing to help in the effort to dig Bart out. Because Sting is just that awesome.

{{quote| '''Sting''': Not while one of my fans needs me!<br />

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** Another episode of ''[[The Simpsons]]'' revolved around several students discovering Ms. Krabappel and Principal Skinner kissing in a janitor's closet. The rumors about what happened [[Gossip Evolution|get more and more explicit]], until [[The Ditz|Ralph Wiggum]] utters the immortal line:

{{quote| ''"I saw Principal Skinner and Mrs. Krabappel in the closet and they were making babies and I saw one of the babies and the baby looked at me.''"}}

* ''[[~~Veggie Tales (Animation)|~~Veggie Tales]]'' has "[[Something Person|Larryboy]] and the Fib From Outer Space", in which Junior Asparagus tries to tell a lie to get himself out of trouble, but the lie gets crazier when those around him press for details. Reflecting the snowballing is an [[Anthropomorphic Personification]] of the lie, the titular Fib, which [[Make My Monster Grow|gets bigger and bigger]].

* ''[[Veggie Tales]]'' has "[[Something Person|Larryboy]] and the Fib From Outer Space", in which Junior Asparagus tries to tell a lie to get himself out of trouble, but the lie gets crazier when those around him press for details. Reflecting the snowballing is an [[Anthropomorphic Personification]] of the lie, the titular Fib, which [[Make My Monster Grow|gets bigger and bigger]].

* An episode of ''[[Dilbert]]'' had the usual team creating a record of a new employee for the purpose of taking the ownership of a cubicle or some such, even making a picture of his face by amalgamating their own. By the end of the episode, everyone thought he was real.

** Not everyone. Catbert did not believe in Todd.