Will Not Tell a Lie: Difference between revisions

* Star from [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s novel ''[[Glory Road (novel)|Glory Road]]''. She always tells the truth, but has no problem with misleading you.

** Star has no problem with letting ''you'' mislead ''yourself.'' Rufo even states this explicitly.

** Jubal exemplifies this to Jill by calling his secretary over who is licensed as a Fair Witness and asking her what color the neighbor's house in the distance is. She responds "On this side it's white, boss."

* One of the obnoxious behaviors of the Martians in [[Fredric Brown]]'s ''Martians, Go Home'' is spying on humans and blabbing their secrets. The fact that their stories always check out when someone tries to verify them just makes matters worse.

* The wizards in the ''[[Young Wizards]]'' series. When your job is reshaping reality with words, lying is a Bad Idea.

* Wallace Wallace of ''[[No More Dead Dogs]]'' refuses to lie because his father was constantly telling whoppers when Wallace was a kid, which leads him to be incredibly blunt towards others. {{spoiler|He does tell Rachel a white lie at the end.}}

* Lord Foul, the [[Big Bad]] of the ''[[Chronicles of Thomas Covenant]]'' always seems to tell the truth. The [[Word of God]] is that he thinks himself so superior to his enemies that he feels lying is beneath him. He is very good at saying things that are misleading, yet technically true, though.

* ''[[Les Misérables]]'' : Sister Simplice is this trope to the extreme. Also, [[Inspector Javert]].

* Seleneans and Zaldans in the [[Star Trek Novel Verse]]. The Seleneans are only a partial example- their truthful nature is more a result of their usual form of communication rather than for moral reasons. Zaldans, on the other hand, are fanatical in their Will Not Tell a Lie morality. This causes problems in one novel, [[A Singular Destiny]]. Evidence suggests that planet Zalda is refusing refugees; this isn’t true, but the faked records are convincing enough. The situation is made considerably worse in that their representative is completely outraged at the very idea of being [[Wrongly Accused]] - of being ''lied'' at and made to look like a liar himself- and storms off rather than defending himself.

* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s ''The Shadow Kingdom'' [[Kull]] insults a Pict by claiming Picts never tell the truth, even though they follow this trope.

* The [[Our Elves Are Better|Marat]] from the [[Codex Alera]] have little concept of lying, and no word for it. As such, being "deliberately mistaken" is an incredibly grave offense, and an accusation of it can lead to an honor duel.

'''Roy''': (whispering) "Mechanical defect"?

'''Durkon''':(whispering) I dunno, I count "able to be picked by a rogue" as a pretty major defect, aye? }}

** In the prequel book ''On The Origin Of PCs'', Roy thought this of his father. In actuality, Roy's father lies a lot.