Exact Words / Visual Novels

• In Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, Zero of all people uses this trope to create unnecessary violence in their Nonary Game with the rules. The goal, as given via a sheet of paper, is to find a way off the ship before it sinks, a door with a 9 on it. It never says there is only one number 9 door. There are actually two, but everyone assumes there's only one because there's only one of every other numbered door. When this is discovered, one character observes that there was no need for distrust and competition since two number 9 doors are enough for everyone to escape. Of course, knowing that from the start might not have prevented various murders since the murderer was familiar with the game's layout anyway. Zero also didn't specifically say that the number 9 doors were the actual exit, just that the only way off the ship was through them. The party eventually discovers one more number 9 door blocking the final escape route that's actually a number q door (which, through the use of base-36 and digital roots as was used all throughout the rest of the game, makes it a number 8 door.) Lastly, depending on if you mean the Japanese or English translation of the game, the setup for all this changes. In Japanese, Zero announces to "seek a door that caries a kyuu", which the cast takes to mean the Japanese word for 9. However, Zero meant the aforementioned "q" door, the true exit to the ship. Meanwhile, to preserve the pun in English, the instructions are changed to written text given to each player, with the font choice making a lower-case q look like a kind of seven-segment-ish 9, (which can be confirmed by looking at the visual made to show the rules sheet in-game).
• Ace Attorney:
  • At one point in Justice For All, Matt Engarde gets away with lying to Phoenix despite his Magatama which lets him physically see people keeping secrets from him using this method. Specifically, he answers "no" to the question "Did you kill the victim?". Which he didn't. He did, however, hire an assassin to do it. The Magatama activates when he later answers "no" to the question "Did you have anything to do with the victim's death?". It's implied that this only worked because the client was warped enough to consider there to be an honest, meaningful difference between the two, and so he didn't consciously hide anything from Phoenix the first time around. Not to mention that the assassin in question, Shelly de Killer, blackmailed Phoenix into defending Engarde in court because somebody framed Engarde. Which is absolutely true; Adrian Andrews stole a knife with Engarde's fingerprints and used it to stab the victim (who was actually strangled). What Phoenix doesn't learn until later was that Adrien was Framing the Guilty Party because she knew about Matt's rivalry with the victim and that if something happened to the victim, it was probably Matt's fault.
  • In Trials and Tribulations, Godot is introduced as yet another prosecutor of legendary skill who has never lost a case. Pretty standard opponent for Phoenix at this point. When the judge asks him how many cases he's prosecuted, he answers with... zero. And this is actually two examples in one: he's never prosecuted a case before, but he has defended many cases in the past.
    Judge: But you said you've never lost before.
    Godot: ...Exactly. I've never lost. I've never won before either.
    • Later in the same game, Iris manages to dodge Phoenix's question over whether she went to college by saying she "never had an interest" in it. This is entirely true; Iris has no reason to go to college herself as she's training to be a nun. However, she never says she didn't attend despite her lack of interest. She attended college in Dahlia's place so she could get back the necklace Dahlia planted on Phoenix, and Iris was the girl Phoenix was actually dating when he thought he was dating Dahila.
  • Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney:
    • In the first case, Phoenix presents a locket with a picture of his daughter (Trucy) inside. However, that locket belonged to the victim. Apollo after the trial calls him out for prejury, but Phoenix points out that he never said it was his locket. Additionally, the piece of evidence that gets Kristoph Gavin implicated as the murderer is a forgery; it's technically not a lie, because while the actual bloody fifth ace Phoenix had Apollo present was a forgery, it was only used to prove that the card did exist and was stolen from the scene by the killer. Phoenix used this to catch Kristoph in a Morton's Fork; either he reveals that the presented evidence is a forgery, which can only mean he knows that the real card exists and thus was at the scene of the crime, or stay silent and be found guilty anyway.
    • In one point of Lamiroir's testimony, she says "As for what I saw... I saw nothing." and she means it. She really saw nothing, she is blind at that point. She did, however, hear something.
    • In Phoenix's final trial, the victim, Magnifi Gramarye, sent a letter threatening Zak and Valant unless they came to his hospital room, took one of the guns he had prepared, and delivered "one bullet to the forehead." The defendant, Zak, did follow these instructions, and there was a gun with his fingerprints at the scene, so how could you possibly defend him? Point to the clown doll that was behind Magnifi's bed, which has a bullet in its forehead. He never said to fire a shot at his forehead.
    • There's also Phoenix's response to Lamiroir being called as a juror. She says that she shouldn't be a juror if they have a connection to the case, and Phoenix points out she clearly has no connection to the defendant or victim. What he's leaving out is that she's the mother of the defence attorney, and since no-one else knows that no-one will call them on it. He's also leaving out that she's tied to the case that got Phoenix disbarred, because no-one but the two of them knows that Lamiroir is Thalassa Gramarye and even then, it's not specifically THIS case.
  • In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies: Candice Arme was killed by a bomb. Ted Tonate did not detonate the bomb. She wasn't killed by the bomb's detonation. Tonate used the bomb as a blunt object to hit her on the head. Someone else later stole the detonator and blew up the courtroom for unrelated reasons.
  • In Spirit of Justice, Dhurke spends the final chapter spouting nothing but this trope, to the point where his dialogue alone gives the game replay value.
    • Near the start, he tells Apollo that his days are numbered by saying that is "not long for this world" and he "hear[s] the Twilight Realm calling [his] name". Apollo assumes he means that he's terminally ill. He's actually been Dead All Along and is currently being channeled by a spirit medium, which can only last a few days at most.
    • When Apollo shows him a photo of a woman and a baby and uses a background detail to guess that the baby is Nahyuta, he asks Dhurke if the photo is really 23 years old. Dhurke replies, "You're really good with numbers!", leaving out that while Apollo's math may be good, his initial assumption was false. It later turns out that the baby is Rayfa, and the photo was actually taken while Dhurke was on the run with Amara, rather than before Amara's supposed assassination.
    • Partway through his trial, Dhurke escapes from the courtroom, yelling about how he can't leave Amara in danger. The player is led to believe this is because she is being held prisoner somewhere, but he is actually saying this because she is the medium currently channeling his body, so if he gets executed, she dies too.
    • Even before all of that, while Phoenix is agonizing over Maya being kidnapped (again), Dhurke reassures him that "she's in a safe place". Maya is currently channeling him.
  • In the DLC case of Spirit of Justice, Pierce Nichody, the butler for the Sprocket family, says he was present to hear the last words of the eldest daughter Selena, which were "Please help Sorin," "in a professional capacity", which he uses to explain why he serves Sorin as his butler. He's actually taking both phrases out of context; the "professional capacity" was not as a butler, but as a surgeon operating on Selena and Sorin after their car accident, and "please help Sorin" meant to operate on Sorin before Selena. Pierce complied, resulting in Selena's death. He serves as Sorin's butler as part of his complicated plan to get revenge on Sorin.
  • In The Great Ace Attorney, before Ryunosuke defends in his first trial against the "Reaper of Old Baily" Barok van Zieks, Inspector Gregson tells him that no one can save a defendant from the Reaper, which Ryunosuke takes to mean that Barok is another prosecutor who's never lost a case. After Ryunosuke manages to win, Gregson corrects him. Barok does lose cases regularly, because that's how the legal system works, but his losses never save the defendants. The reason people call Barok the Reaper is because anyone who is declared Not Guilty in one of his trials dies shortly afterwards. This then proceeds to happen to Ryunosuke's client, who's thankfully an Asshole Victim.
    • After Kazuma seemingly dies on the voyage to Great Britain, Hosonaga states the exchange tour cannot continue because the terms of the deal was to have one lawyer and one assistant. Sholmes quickly points out the exchange never specify who the lawyer was, meaning Ryunosuke could replace Kazuma.
    • Ryunosuke is shocked that Sholmes was able to deduce and condemn that Natsume Soseki as the culprit in Case 1-4 so quickly, as the police had requested of him. Sholmes clarified that the job the police had requested of him was to identify and locate the man who ran away from the crime scene and the police were the ones to condemn Natsume Soseki as the murderer.
    • During Case 2-3, Sholmes happily declares that Madam Tusspell's job for him regarding her stolen waxwork was "largely" solved. "Largely" meaning that majority of the waxwork model was returned but the head was still missing.
    • Daley Vigil recounts how Genshin Asogi said they had a final will and testament that they considered to be their final weapon. When Genshin's will was found to have nothing substantial, Ryunosuke realizes the exact wording of "a" and not "my". The actual document was Klint van Ziek's will which provided a damning confession of his role as the Professor and his extortioner, Mael Stronghart.
• In Umineko: When They Cry, anything said in red text is true, no matter how confusing this makes cases. To solve them, you have to realize the implication that if red text is absolutely true, this carries the implication that anything that isn't in red, including the third-person narration, can potentially be false, so you have to pay close attention to what isn't said in red text. For example, for the first twilight of the first game, it is said that "The identity of all unidentified corpses is guaranteed" and that "no body double was used". But no red truth says that there were six corpses in the garden shed. It turns out Shannon's corpse wasn't actually there from the beginning.
• Zig-Zagging Trope in Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward. Some characters are very particular about promises, so a shrewd player pays close attention to exactly what is being promised before making a difficult choice. Of course, some characters—even the nice ones!—also have no problem lying to the player character's face. It's amazing how a little freedom-or-death struggle brings out the manipulative sides of people.
  • Possibly the straightest example of this trope is in a possible bad ending, where just before a certain Ally or Betray choice, Clover asks Sigma to choose "Betray", so she and Sigma can get more points and Clover in particular will reach 9 points. Clover promises Sigma that if Sigma chooses Betray, Clover will listen to anything Sigma says! But picking "Betray" at this point will get you the bad ending, because upon reaching 9 points Clover promptly goes for the exit. Sigma angrily shouts to Clover that she promised she would listen to anything Sigma said, and Clover replies that she is listening, she can hear Sigma very clearly even from all the way over there! She never promised to actually do what he said. This has a much greater emphasis in the original Japanese, where the phrase Clover uses - iu koto o nandemo kiite ageru - is a much stronger idiom for "do anything you say" in a seductive sense, but does literally mean "listen to anything you say".
  • Another example is in Tenmyouji's ending. Tenmyouji and Quark pick betray, and picking ally results in Sigma asking why they betrayed him. They don't answer, however Tenmyouji promises him that even though both him and Quark have 9 points, they won't open the number 9 door. A moment later, Clover, who had also reached 9 points in her own voting session, opens the number 9 door. Tenmyouji and Quark promptly move to go through it with her, much to Sigma's anger who reminds them of their promise. Tenmyouji then says to Sigma that he promised they wouldn't open the number 9 door. Which they didn't, Clover did. They didn't say anything about not escaping.
  • In any ending where someone escapes, the announcer declares that the Nonary Game is now over and that all doors other than the Number 9 Door have been unlocked. This includes the identical door on the floor below, though it can only be opened from the outside. This means that it might be possible for the winner(s) to let everyone else out, depending on whether or not the game being over also deactivated the losers' bracelets, which will kill them if they leave with less than 9 BP (or if the kill switch is activated by specifically going through the number 9 door with less than 9 BP). However, the only ending where the door actually gets used is the Golden Ending where everyone escapes legitimately anyway, and then decide to go back inside for some more answers.
• In Steins;Gate Okabe needs information from Faris. Faris is a grandmaster at a game Okabe has never even heard of, but he agrees to play her for the information anyway. His friends try to get him to back down, since he can't possibly win, but Okabe insists he'll finish the game in ONE MOVE!!! The game starts...and he loses immediately. Hey, the deal was he just had to play her, not win.
• Grisaia Series:
  • In The Fruit of Grisaia, Sachi does exactly what you asked of her, no matter how you meant it, if you asked her to bring the "best" milk she will travel to the part of the country most famous of it's high quality milk in order to get "best" quality. Be careful of what and how you ask of her.
  • Pulled accidentally by Amane in The Eden of Grisaia. After stopping by a maid cafe and having to eat admittedly good soba noodles from an obnoxious waitress, Yumiko gets home and asks something to eat so long as it's not soba. Amane makes udon instead, causing Yumiko to grumble about more noodles.
• In Reflections on the River, the king and queen went to a witch for help in having a strong, healthy child, and interpreted the witch's response as promising one. When the resulting child is sickly, they therefore consider themselves to been cheated. However, what they were actually promised was merely "their greatest desire" — and that wasn't what they said (and perhaps even genuinely thought) it was.
  King Jianyu: All those years ago, we asked for your help and you promised us our greatest desire: a healthy child. Yet look at the results!
  Zheng: Then maybe in your heart, there was an even greater desire. One that turned true while the other didn't.
• Danganronpa:
  • Monokuma doesn't lie, but he will use these regularly. This often doubles as a case for Loophole Abuse, as Monokuma doesn't tolerate rulebreaking but loves it when students are able to get past the spirit of the rules while technically sticking to the letter (for example, in the first game students must sleep in the dorms, but they don't have to sleep in their own dorm, just in that area).
  • In Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Monokuma uses these in the Monokuma File to deceive the students about the 5th murder. He makes it look like the multiple wounds all over the victim's body were irrelevant by stating that they were incurred long before the body was found. These wounds were what killed the victim and did occur long before the case... because the "victim" had been dead ever since chapter 1, and Monokuma had used her corpse to fake another murder, something the students couldn't easily deduce because they didn't know bodies were preserved in the biology lab.
  • Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair:
    • Big Bad Monokuma calls the Future Foundation "World Enders", leading the player to believe that the Future Foundation is a Nebulous Evil Organisation. While the "World Enders" bit is objectively true, Monokuma doesn't necessarily say that the Future Foundation wants to "end" the world brought about by The Tragedy by fighting against the Ultimate Despair, and indeed, they turn out to be Good All Along.
    • In chapter 4, he lures the group to the amusement park with the promise of giving them information about their situation, as well as claiming that there are ship parts on the island. He neglects to mention that they don't actually get the information unless they undertake a potentially lethal challenge, and even then the information is incomplete anyway. And the ship parts? They're from a toy.
      Monokuma: Tee-hee! You totally got tricked! I never said a single word about the ship being real!
• In the common route of Little Busters!, one of the missions from Lennon asks Riki and Rin to cure a student named Aikawa of his love sickness towards Rin's rival Sasami, as it's gotten to the point where he can't focus on school. At first, they interpret this as playing The Matchmaker for the two of them. However, due to Sasami's feelings for their friend Kengo, Riki and Rin fail to hook them up. While consoling Aikawa after their failed attempts to hook them up, the two realize that the mission only said to cure his love sickness, not get him a girlfriend. The fact that Aikawa can think about something besides Sasami and can focus on schoolwork again is enough to complete the mission.
• A Little Lily Princess:
  • Sara never learned French. Doesn't mean she cannot speak the language, which comes as a big surprise for Miss Minchin.
    She had not learned French, exactly, not out of books, but her papa and other people had always spoken it to her, and she had read it and written it as she had read and written English.
  • If Lottie's route is committed to in Act 2, Miss Minchin tries to get her to stop treating Sara as her "mother" by telling that she is now supposed to treat Sara, who has gone through Riches to Rags, the same as Becky. Lottie's response is to also bring food for Becky when she visits Sara to give her food.
  • During the second half of her route, one event has Lottie start asking Sara questions about herself. When Sara asks why she's so curious about all those details all of a sudden, Lottie says that she's going to tell the story of the Princess Sara. Sara understands the answer as Lottie planning to emulate her The Storyteller activities with a story involving a princess based on her. It later turns out that Lottie's widower father was the intended audience for the "story of Princess Sara". Sara herself points out that Lottie, did, indeed, "tell the story".
• Havenfall Is for Lovers: In Mackenzie's fifth season, when a Code Black agent asks Grace how much she'd told her sister about the supernatural, she replies, "Nothing. Our family already knew the Riders." Both statements are true, but the implication — that the second statement is an explanation for the heroine knowing about the supernatural — is not.
  That's two truths turned into an impressive sort of lie, and I'm glad Grace is quick on her feet.
• Forms the basis of an important reveal in Your Turn to Die: Keiji Shinogi repeatedly insists that he is a police officer, even referring to himself as "Mr. Policeman". He never specifies whether he's currently on the force, as it turns out that he's an ex-police officer.
• Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane:
  • Both Tyrion and Eris are bound by this towards the end of case 5 when arguing over Celeste's soul, being unable to lie or make false statements.
  • This is how Beatrice Frega almost gets away with murder. She told him he could kill him, knowing that he would.
    Beatrice: Let me ask you a question, Marrunath. Did I order you to murder my father?
    Marrunath: ...No. You did not, Lady Beatrice.

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