The Cake Is a Lie: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"[[Blatant Lies|The Enrichment Center is committed to the well being of all participants]]. [[Trope Namer|Cake]] and grief counseling will be available at the conclusion of the test."''|'''GLaDOS''', '''''[[Portal (series)|Portal]]'''''. {{spoiler|As it turns out, [[Subverted Trope|she wasn't lying about the cake.]]}}}}

 

 

[[Self-Demonstrating Article|There will be cake at the bottom of this page.]]

 

{{examples}}

* There was a slight instance of this in the Battle City arc of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]''; Arcana, one of Marik's servant's, is promised a reunion with his lost love upon fulfillment of a mission; Marik even put a mannequin shrouded by curtains in the room to persuade him. He fails his mission, and the last thing he sees before Marik kills him is that he never intended to keep his end of the deal.

 

* There was a ''[[Rugrats]]'' comic story where Chuckie had all but one of the collectible Reptar cards, and Angelica claimed she would give him the one he was missing if he performed a series of chores for her. When he finished them all, it turned out the card she gave him was a phony drawing.

* In the Gunslinger comic, one of the villains ask an addict for information on the heroes, implying that they will give him "metal" in exchange. After they are finished, the addict asks if he is getting gold or silver, the villain replies 'lead' and shoots him. (This is a visual re-telling of the incident from the original source, the novel ''[[The Dark Tower/Wizard and Glass|Wizard and Glass]]''.)

* Subverted in one Marvel comic. A skrull promises a human 'the most beautiful woman in the galaxy' to betray his species. He accepts, but then turns back when somebody points out to him 'Even if the Skrull was going to keep his promise, what's beautiful to a reptilian alien?' - then we see a beautiful Skrull woman waiting to be given away to some lowly human (out of love for the invading skrull). The Fridge Logic is, Skrulls are shapeshifters. He could send the ugliest woman, and she could change into the most beautiful.

* Subverted in an early issue of ''[[The Batman Adventures]]'', the [[Batman: The Animated Series|animated Batman spin-off comic]] from the 1990s. [[The Joker]] hijacks a cable television outlet and uses it to broadcast himself onto a closed-circuit TV set delivered to Selina Kyle's apartment. After revealing that [[Paranoia Fuel|he knows Selina is Catwoman]], Joker tells her that he has concocted a foolproof plan for stealing the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London, and asks her if she'd like to attempt the feat. Selina, who relishes this ultimate test of her burglary skills, still feels suspicious, even asking Joker, "What's the catch?" Turns out, Joker also wants her to snatch something ''else'' for him while she's in London (we're never told exactly what this is, but it's apparently microcircuitry or something similarly electronic). Once Selina has heard all the details, she goes through with Joker's plan - but Batman outsmarts her and manages to prevent her from swiping the jewels, and Catwoman barely escapes capture. She does, however, manage to acquire the technology Joker requested, and sends it to him at the end of the comic. (In the next issue, it's finally revealed that whatever Joker had Catwoman steal for him allows him to override every other TV station in Gotham City, so that he can broadcast his sadistic variety show on every channel.) But even though Catwoman didn't get what she wanted, Joker didn't care: she managed to get him on TV, and whether or not she also got the Crown Jewels was irrelevant.

 

== Fairy Tales ==

* In "[[The Pied Piper of Hamelin]]", the town offers a handsome reward for ridding them of the rats. When the piper succeeds flawlessly, they flatly refuse to pay him and boot him out of the town. It turns out pretty badly for them.

 

 

* In ''[[Dangerous Liaisons]]'', when Valmont breaks off his relationship with Madame de Tourvel and comes to collect his "reward" from Merteuil, she simply tells him "no," and [[Reason You Suck Speech|mocks him to his face]].

** Therefore, also seen in ''[[Cruel Intentions]]''.

** ''[[The Island]]'' is based on "The Clonus Horror" and has a similar lie. The clones are told that they are preparing for a trip to "The Island," the only haven from a "virus outbreak."

 

* This is also sometimes known as [[wikipedia:Jam tomorrow|"jam tomorrow"]] for the White Queen's promise in ''[[Alice in Wonderland|Through The Looking Glass]]'' to provide "jam every other day"—which [[Exact Words|turns out to mean]] jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today.

* The White Witch in ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia|The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe]]'' promises Edmund more [[Evil Tastes Good|Turkish Delight]] for playing along with her.

* Played with in the [[Buffy]] spin-off novel ''Pretty Maids All In A Row'': The novel focuses on Spike and Dru, who are hired by a demon to do a job for him, with the promised reward being a powerful magical artifact Dru has decided she wants. A third of the way through, there's a flashback revealing that this artifact was stolen off the demon sixty years ago—but then two-thirds of the way through, there's another flashback revealing that thirty years ago the demon took it back. {{spoiler|Finally, when Spike and Dru come to claim the reward, he admits that when he hired them he'd already given it away to somebody else he wanted a favour from. Final score: [[Double Subversion]].}}

* In Sommerset Maugham's story "A Friend in Need", a wealthy businessman tells the narrator about an incident in which he promised a [[Remittance Man]] a position at the firm if he could successfully swim a treacherous length of water. The Remittance Man drowned to death, and the business man then casually reveals that he never had a position open in the first place.

 

* [[Doctor Who]]: "Yes, I lied, it's a jammy dodger. But [[It Makes Sense in Context|I was promised tea!]]"

* The premise of the US [[The Office|Office]] episode "Scott's Tots" was founded on this.

* The crew on ''[[Farscape]]'' once visited an agricultural world where tomorrow was ''always'' a rest day, but it never came because the workers' memories kept getting re-written as to what day it was.

 

* A song written by songwriter Ed Pickford, and popular with many folk singers, is Pound a Week Rise. The workers of the coal mines are fed up and want a raise. When they confront the then chairman of the National Coal Board (Lord Robens), he tells them that he used to be a miner and knows how hard it can be so he makes them a deal. If he can get their output to break records, he'll give raise their pay by a pound per week (hence the title). When they finally accomplish this, he laughs at them, denies them the raise he promised and yells at them to get back to their jobs.

* The [[Child Ballad]] "The Golden Vanity" takes this and puts a rather...dark spin on it. {{spoiler|The captain promises the hero (the ship's boy) money and his daughter, if he will swim to the enemy vessel and drill holes in it, but when the hero sinks the enemy ship, the captain leaves him in the ocean to drown}}.

* According to [[That Other Wiki]], in the non-Bowdlerized ending to the song "Big Rock Candy Mountain", the candy is a lie.

 

* In ''[[Shadowrun]]'' games, this is, way too often, what the "run offered by Mr. Johnson" turns out to be—especially if the [[Game Master]] [[Killer Game Master|really likes screwing his players over]].

 

* ''[[Portal (series)|Portal]]'': [[Trope Namer]] ("THE CAKE IS A LIE" being written on walls in various places by Doug Rattmann, an employee turned test subject). Note that there ''was'' cake, it just wasn't for you. {{spoiler|YOU ARE GOING TO BE THE CAKE!}}

** This is later spoofed in ''[[Tales of Monkey Island]] Chapter 4: The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood'', {{spoiler|when Judge Grindstump asks Guybrush on what grounds the latter is not guilty of spreading the [[Hate Plague|Pox of LeChuck]], after which one of the four reasons listed is "The Pox is a lie!"}}

** Likewise referenced in the game adaptation of ''[[X-Men (film)|X-Men Origins: Wolverine]]'': in one level, the player can use a portal device to access a hidden room which contains a cake; doing so unlocks the Achievement "The Truth".

* In the episode ''The Tomb of Sammun-Mak'' of ''[[Sam and Max]]'', the great-grandpas of Sam and Max (Sameth and Maximus) are entrusted by M. Papierwaite to find and [[MacGuffin Delivery Service|deliver]] an artifact called The Devil's Toybox. Having done so, they find out the promised reward is {{spoiler|to have Maximus sacrificed in a [[Summoning Ritual]]}}

* [[Warhammer Online]] has a quest in which a goblin tells you to run through the [[PvP]] zone of a much lower level to look for "shinies". This triggers the in-game mechanic of turning people too high for a given zone into a [[One-Hit-Point Wonder|chicken]] - and if you actually do make it through alive, the goblin roundly mocks you for believing him. You do get a humorous title for it, though.

* In ''[[Red Dead Redemption]]'', this happens twice. First, {{spoiler|1=Captain DeSanta promises to give Javier Escuela and Bill Williamson to Marston in exchange for helping him fight the rebels. Instead, he tries to have him executed.}} Later, {{spoiler|Agent Ross reneges on his promise to leave Marston and his family alone after his old gang are dead by sending the US army to kill them.}}

* At the beginning of ''[[Tales of Monkey Island]] Chapter 4'', Guybrush thinks there would be "ice cream cake" when Flotsam's citizens arrive. {{spoiler|Instead, he is summoned to court on civil and criminal charges.}}

** Hades promises Cloud assistance in exchange for his services, and it turns out he lied. Both in the first game and ''Chain of Memories''.

** Subverted with Ursula; in the first game she planned on keeping her promise, for once, but she would have done it in a way that mirrored the [[Jackass Genie]] trope. In the sequel, she still planned on keeping her promise, but it was more along the lines of [[Loophole Abuse]]. It was played straight in the third game.

* Throughout the first three sections of ''[[Haunting Ground]]'' {{spoiler|the protagonist is helped by a mysterious man called Lorenzo, who promises her (through his many letters/memos/notes) that his only intention is to help her escape the Castle. However, once the first three antagonists have been dealt with, Lorenzo reveals his true intentions; to steal Fiona's Azoth from her all for himself}}.

* Gamesoft's mobile phone version of [[Oregon Trail]] has this exchange between two characters:

'''Kid''': THAT'S A LIE! }}

 

{{quote|'''Marik''': Shut up! What we came here to do is defeat Yugi Muto, once and for all!

'''Bonz''': Brains. [I came here for the free tacos.]

* In ''[[Suburban Knights]]'', [[The Nostalgia Critic]] lured everyone to Chicago under the promise of a free car.

 

* In ''[[Invader Zim]]'', the kids have to sell candy bars to raise money for new desks. Zim goes to great lengths to sell the most in order to win the secret ultimate prize, which turns out to be...{{spoiler|absolutely nothing. It was just a trick to motivate the kids}}.

** [[Memetic Mutation|ADHESIVE MEDICAL STRIPS]]

* In ''[[Dave the Barbarian]]'', Fang tricks Dave into entering a Mongrel Hordes Boot Camp, by saying they were going to a hat show.

 

* In a 1996 ad campaign to promote ''Pepsi Stuff'', commercials for the film ''True Lies'' claimed that if anyone collected 7,000,000 points, Pepsi would give that person a Harrier jet (featured in the movie). A man by the name of John Leonard redeemed a check equivalent to the amount of the 7,000,000 points, but Pepsi refused on the grounds that the jet was not really being offered. After a lawsuit was filed, a federal judge sided with Pepsi.

* Happens all too often when you're a toddler. Your parent will promise you a reward if you do something or go through something, and once that's over with they take back their word. This even happens to kids, teenagers, and even adults, and it encourages kids to engage in rebellious behavior—and they wonder why there's so many rebellious teenagers around.

** As the description for [[Moving the Goalposts]] points out, this is actually [[Abusive Parents|a subtle form of psychological abuse]] which may result in life-long trust issues since, well, if you can't trust your parents, [[Paranoia Fuel|whom can you trust?]]

* Although the exact amount is disputed Thomas Edison reportedly promised 10-50,000$ (1.1 million today) to anyone who could solve the crippling inefficiencies in his prototype automobile motors and electrical generators. [[Nikola Tesla]] solved them both while Edison refused to honor his agreement. Edison told Tesla he had a lot to learn about an American sense of humor—the cruel irony is that Edison ''still'' gets the credit for being a genius despite inventing very little of what he's credited with while Tesla, who invented more things than Edison had patents, was all but forgotten (though that's starting to change).

:Edison also refused to raise Tesla's salary from 18 to 25 dollars a week (a rather reasonable request as the original salary was for a line worker while Tesla was now making some of the most advanced creations at Edison's plant). All of this was the main reason why Tesla went to work for Westinghouse, who not only fully acknowledged him, but also paid him a crap-load of money, which Tesla then immediately spent [[Mad Scientist|on various bizarre inventions]]. That said, Tesla indeed was one of the fathers of a modern AC power grid, and won the "War of Currents" for Westinghouse.

* Swedish-Finnish journalist, writer and talk-show host Mark Levengood once said this happened to him. His mother told him that if he did not start smoking before his 18th birthday, she would pay for his drivers license. When he turned 18 and asked for his reward, his mother [[Hypocritical Humor|lit another of her cigarettes]] and told him she had never planned to pay his driving lessons. "The important thing was that you did not start smoking, and it did succeed, didn't it?"

* A literal, if subverted, example: Twinkies. [[Squick|Read the ingredients list]]; very little of it sounds even remotely like cake, more like industrial sludge...and yet, like the disgusting ingredients of the infamous [[Portal (series)|Portal]] cake, it all comes together to form...yup. Cake.

* Atheists tend to view religious claims of [[Fluffy Cloud Heaven|an afterlife]] as examples of this trope, with heaven as "the cake" (or more precisely "[http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/282700.html Pie in the Sky]" or "[http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/jam-tomorrow.html Jam Tomorrow]"). There is no evidence that the cake exists, and you can't ask anyone who has finished the test. You only have [[GLaDOS]]'s promise, combined with your own desire for cake.

 

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{{reflist}}

[[Category:Have Your Cake and Trope It Too]]

[[Category:Dirty Social Tricks]]

[[Category:Trope Names From Memes]]

[[Category:Plots]]