Basic Trope: An unlikely and/or ridiculous excuse for a wound.
- Straight: Bob has injuries from a brutal fight. When asked about his bruises, Bob lies that and says that he got them in a game of (American) Football that got rough.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob gets his arm chopped off. Bob explains it away as the result of a drastic accident he suffered while using a sewing machine.
- Bob is incinerated and reduced to a heap of ash. Alice makes the dubious claim that this happened because he burnt his hand while lighting a cigarette.
- Alice walks in on Bob getting severely beaten and Bob says he tripped and faceplanted.
- Downplayed: Bob has a small bruise on his arm from being hit and explains it by saying that he hit it on a counter top when asked.
- Justified:
- A character was in a place or does something that they want nobody else to know about, so anything that may be relating to the secret is brushed off. May be done more carefully to avoid being mistaken as the above justification.
- Both the truth and what Bob say are both correct. Bob had injuries from a brutal fight from a game of (American) Football that got rough.
- Inverted:
- Bob tells everyone that he was beaten up, but everyone assumes that he got his injuries in a particularly rough game of football.
- Bob really did injure himself playing football, but everyone thinks someone beat him.
- Subverted: The audience and/or the other characters are led to believe that Bob's reason for a bruise is that he was beaten, but Bob then reveals that he was hurt by something else.
- Double Subverted: It turns out someone did beat him; the beating just isn't the cause of that particular bruise.
- Parodied:
- Bob just beat up a gang of bikers. When asked about his battle scar the next day, he explains that he stepped on a cat's tail.
- Bob has a slight cut on his cheek due to shaving, but Alice assumes a Yandere with an axe tried to hurt him, and has hysterics over the supposed incident.
- Bob is missing a leg. He explains that he accidentally poked himself with a pencil.
- Zig-Zagged: Bob shows up with bruises that he explains away as being from a game of football. It turns out that this would be correct, but someone did beat him, but not where it would show.
- Averted:
- Bob really does play football, and it's known he got himself injured playing football.
- Bob doesn't get injured at all.
- Bob and another person openly fight each other, not necessarily from animosity, and he openly admits that his opponent gave him the bruises.
- Bob never appears with any suspicious injuries.
- Enforced: "We don't want to deal with Bob's assailant yet, so let's have Bob lie to cover up the injuries."
- Lampshaded: "Bob sure gets hurt a lot. I mean, he plays football, yeah, but still..."
- Invoked: Draco the Bully threatens to do a lot worse if Bob spills the beans about who beat him up.
- Exploited: Because of Bob's lies, the police never gets wind about who did it.
- Defied: Alice forces a Truth Serum down Bob's throat before asking him about his injuries.
- Discussed: "Do you really believe he got those injuries in a rough game of football? It sounds kind of improbable. He used to dislike football, but he may have given it a chance."
- Conversed: Charles the viewer asks himself why Bob doesn't even tell the truth to his girlfriend and why she believes the Blatant Lies.
- Played for Drama: Alice the Domestic Abuser hits Bob frequently and forces him to say that he fell down the stairs if anyone asks about his bruises.
- Implied: There's no evidence Bob was actually in a fight, but he seems to be dishonest about his excuse.
What I'd like to know is, how on earth did you cut yourself shaving while going back to the main tropes?
