Believing Their Own Lies: Difference between revisions
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[[Doublethink]] is an extreme example where the said liar does know better but keeps believing his own lies simply because he can. [[Sister Trope]] to [[A God Am I]], where there is frequently overlap. The key difference is that this trope is less specific and doesn't ''have'' to be a claim of Godhood. This trope also applies only when the character should know perfectly well they ''aren't'' a god, but have convinced themselves otherwise.
See also [[Becoming the Mask]], in which a character assumes a fake identity he ultimately wishes to keep. A [[Straw Hypocrite]], who manipulates others by feigning to follow a cause, may get taken in by their own rhetoric this way. Compare [[Conspiracy Theorist
{{examples}}
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*** The Masadans also believe things happened in a way that can't possible be true, all so that they can hold their women in less than slavery and continue to pursue their goal of destroying Grayson.
** Also from [[David Weber]] are the "Archangels" of the ''[[Safehold]]'' series, especially Langhorne and Bedard. They set up a [[Path of Inspiration]] specifically to keep humanity from developing technology again, in violation of the original plans for their mission, in part to satisfy their own megalomania. Pei Kau-Yung grew concerned that they had actually come to believe they were angels.
** And also from ''Safehold'', this is, and is lampshaded as, the single creepiest attribute of church leader [[Complete Monster|Zhaspahr Clyntahn]]
* In the [[Kurt Vonnegut]] novel ''[[Cat's Cradle]]'', Bokonon and Earl McCabe, rulers of the fictional West Indian country San Lorenzo, create a new religion, Bokononism, in order to improve their subjects' lives. To increase the new religion's appeal to the masses, McCabe [[Forbidden Fruit|outlaws its practice upon pain of death]] (while practicing it in secret), whereupon Bokonon "flees" into the jungle, a "wanted" man. Over time, however, the two men become so habituated to their respective roles in the charade that they go insane and become enemies for real.
* [[Doublethink]] from ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'', without which the entire system would collapse: The ability to consciously lie and tell propaganda, yet at the same time believe every word of it.
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== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* The Goa'uld in ''[[Stargate SG-1]].'' They're such [[Large Ham
** An early episode, "The First Commandment," also featured the commander of an SGC team who fell into this trap himself and had to be put down by SG-1.
* This is a possible interpretation of Sue Sylvester from ''[[Glee]]'', seeing as how she keeps up the crazy claims even in her own diary.
* ''[[Midsomer Murders]]'' has two guys running a spiritual center for years, only for one of them (the guru) to start believing in all his [[New Age]]-inspired nonsense, to the chagrin of his partner who wants to lead a different life.
* One of the villains (a cult leader) from an episode of ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]'' started to believe his own hype and go a bit [[A God Am I]]. This caused his followers to turn on him.
* When ''[[Kamen Rider Double]]'s'' Detective Jinno was a beat cop, he had the effect of ''inducing'' this in others by being so gullible that the delinquents lying to him to get out of trouble would end up
* On ''[[Seinfeld]]'' George gives Jerry some advice on being a [[Consummate Liar]] with this little gem: "It's not a lie if you believe it."
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*** He supposedly wrote it to win a bet with fellow sci-fi author Robert A. Heinlein, on whether a sci-fi writer could actually start a "cult of personality" around their works. Supposedly, ''[[Stranger in A Strange Land]]'' was Heinlein's attempt. The story goes that Heinlein backed off when he was that it was ''working'', while Hubbard [[As You Know|did not]]. The rumor dates from over a decade before the Manson Gang murders and People's Temple incident highlighted how abusive personality cults actually were, eventually leading to the discovery that the supposedly "good" personality cults of Stalin and Mao were actually much worse than propagandists made them seem at the time. There is no proof of the bet, though there are several witnesses who overheard their discussion (or claim to have). In any case, Hubbard himself quickly acclimated to his new role as cult leader, and many of Scientology's most successful practices (especially the "Attack the Attacker" policy that causes most of the controversy) were instituted on his explicit orders. Whether Hubbard ever came to actually believe in his own lies is debatable, but he certainly came to believe that profiting off the actions of the literal cult he created was perfectly ethical, regardless of the lives they destroyed in the process, as long as it remained legal.
* [[Those Wacky Nazis|The Nazis]].
** To glue the new enemy to the old one, Nazi propaganda made up Stalin's imaginary 3rd wife -- "Rosa Kaganovich". When Yakov Dzhugashvili was captured and interrogated they asked him about his father's private life, including this imaginary "last wife." Suggesting they saw her as real. By some accounts, they even mistook Yakov himself for her son. Unusual in that this fairy tale survived longer than its
** Historian Ian Kershaw wrote extensively on the so-called "Hiter Myth", the Nazi propagated belief that Hitler was some kind of infallible genius and [[Messianic Archetype|Germany's God-appointed saviour]]. As time went on and Hitler racked up achievement after achievement (rearming Germany, taking over Austria and Czechoslovakia, "solving" Germany's economic problems) that he started to believe it himself. Kershaw calls this moment "the beginning of the end for the Third Reich".
* Using this makes for the most effective lies. A person will generally continue to exhibit "tells" as long as they continue to think of their lies as lies. Once you ''genuinely believe'' that your lies are true, your behavior will no longer suggest anything otherwise.
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