Basic Trope: A statement that's technically true but extremely misleading without all the facts.
- Straight: Bob tells Alice that her father was killed by La Résistance. Actually, her father was a member of La Résistance and was killed by The Empire; Bob merely takes the view that if not for La Résistance, he'd still be alive.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob tells Alice that Charles, a member of La Résistance, is responsible for her father's death. In fact, Bob struck down her father while fighting La Résistance; Charles tried to save him. Bob "reasons" that her father would still be alive, if Charles had managed to rescue him — but since he failed, obviously that means he's responsible.
- Charles wasn't even on the same continent as her father, but Bob reasons that, thanks to the butterfly effect, had Charles acted differently, her father never would have died.
- Bob reasons that if Charles was there, he might have been able to save Alice's father.
- Bob claims Alice's father died of natural causes, reasoning that it's perfectly natural for someone to die after being shot in the head.
- Bob tells Alice that he is a freedom fighter, he fights freedom the way firefighters fight fire and crime fighters fight crime.
- Bob tells Alice that her father committed suicide. After all he considers opposing the Empire to be a suicidal endeavor.
- Downplayed: Bob tells Alice the resistance killed her father. He was actually caught between a fight between the resistance and empire, and was not the only victim. Bob reasons that had the resistance not engaged the empire in such a place, the people would have been spared.
- Justified:
- Bob tells Alice her father would be alive today if not for the resistance, but some time after Alice discovers that it's only true, it is discovered that Bob was told the La Résistance abandoned him to The Empire intentionally to save themselves.
- Bob does not like telling lies, but sees no problems in bending the "truth" around to make people come to their own conclusions.
- Inverted: Bob tells Alice that he died fighting for the resistance. After she finds out he was a redshirt, she claims he lied to her, because he gave her the impression that her father was a major factor in the war.
- Subverted:
- Her father really was killed by the resistance. They lied to her to get her on their side.
- When Alice confronts Bob with the truth, he's just as surprised by it as she was.
- Double Subverted: Or Did They?
- Parodied: Bob tells Alice completely Blatant Lies and uses Insane Troll Logic to justify everything.
- Zig Zagged: It appears that the resistance fighter Charles killed Alice's father, then approached her with this type of lie to get her on their side, but does it rather ineptly. When Alice Spots The Thread and learns this, she abandons the resistance entirely. Charles then finds evidence that Nate is The Mole Bob and believes he killed her father and leaked the "truth" to her to avoid any chance of Alice joining the resistance for real. On confronting Nate, it finally comes out that Alice's father was The Mole and Nate was trying to protect her from that revelation - he was just bad at lying. Probably.
- Averted:
- Bob flat-out lies and has no logic, even shaky logic, to justify his claims.
- He tells the truth, no matter how painful as it might be.
- Bob's cryptic comments on the subject could mean almost anything, and strings Alice along by letting on that he knows something, but never telling her anything.
- Enforced:
- Having Bob lie cements him as "one of the bad guys" and gives the writer a way to set up conflict between Alice and Charles before she learns the truth and joins the heroes.
- In the original script, Alice's father actually was killed by La Résistance, but this was later Retconned due to Executive Meddling.
- Lampshaded: Alice responds to Bob's lie by asking how accurate it really is, but otherwise accepts it at face value.
- Invoked: Bob intentionally allows Alice to learn the truth after giving this type of lie in order to discredit his own side, while acting as The Mole.
- Exploited: "Did You Actually Believe...? that Bob was telling you the whole truth, huh, Alice?"
- Defied:
- Bob points out that he could give this type of lie to make Alice feel better about working with him, then tells her that she'll still work with him due to other reasons.
- "You listen to me, you son of a bitch: you will provide information, right now! Complete and unvarnished information; none of those "from a certain point of view" fucking bullshit loopholes! And if I ever discover that you twisted so much as a single fucking vowel and this is what got me and my men almost killed, endangered the fucking galaxy or almost made us make out with our siblings or whatever, I will fucking kill you right then and here and to hell with whatever happens to me afterwards! Are we fucking clear?!?"
- "You lied. You lied, you lied, you lied! It doesn't matters what kind of wordplay you use to try to defend it, you bastard, you lied!!! It's not about what you think happened, it's about what really happened! Even if nobody else knows it!"
- Discussed: Bob considers how to convince Alice to help him with a friend before approaching her, including the use of this lie and the possible ramifications if the truth emerges.
- Conversed: "Well, that was a really vague and contrived way to be honest. Way to be, Bob."
- Deconstructed: Bob twists the truth because he believes the Awful Truth would hurt Alice too much, and he's afraid of losing her friendship. Naturally, when she finally learns the truth and turns on him, it's even more devastating.
- Reconstructed: However, after some contemplation, Alice realises that Bob's intentions were in her best interests, and that if she had learnt the truth about her father's death earlier, she might have not been mature/discreet/strong enough to do the right thing. So she returns to La Résistance and proceeds to destroy The Empire and avenge her father.
- Played For Laughs: The lie is about something ridiculously trivial, like why Alice received key lime pie instead of lemon meringue. This is presented with just as much drama as an actual murder would have been.
- Played For Drama: Bob was a mentor/father figure to Alice for most of her life, and finding out that he was a lying liar for lies shakes her confidence in everything. Considering he actually did have some understandable reasons for hiding the Awful Truth, which is why she's uncertain if she should really stop believing him altogether.
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