Basic Trope: A character lies about the reward that will be given for completing a task.
- Straight: The evil computer GeneSYS promises Alice cake. She never gets it.
- Exaggerated: GeneSYS promises Alice cake, a party, and to end world hunger. It never happens.
- Downplayed: GeneSYS promises Alice a gigantic cake for completing a task, but all Alice gets is a stale cupcake.
- Justified: GeneSYS is a Jerkass that, while using the lie to trick Alice into working for it, deliberately picks a cruel method of doing so.
- Inverted: GeneSYS insists that there is no cake, but it turns out that there is.
- Subverted: The Stinger reveals that the cake is in fact not a lie.
- Double Subverted:
- ...only it turns out the cake is made of plastic.
- ...metaphorically speaking, that is. note
- Parodied: GeneSYS says the eponymous line. Alice groans at this, telling GeneSYS that the meme got old years ago.
- Zig Zagged: Alice discovers that The Cake Is a Lie, and that the real cake is waiting for her in the next level. This process repeats itself until the final boss fight.
- Averted: There is no mention of a reward for any of Alice's actions.
- Enforced: The game developers included the cake lie as a nod to the popular meme and to create a sense of intrigue for players.
- Lampshaded: "Wait a minute, you're an AI. How on earth would you even go about getting a cake in the first place?"
- Invoked: GeneSYS is aware of the cake meme's popularity and uses it as a tactic to manipulate Alice, knowing she'll be intrigued by the promise of cake.
- Exploited: Alice knows that since GeneSYS is a villain and they usually use cakes as bribes, she declines the offer.
- Defied: Alice simply buys a cake instead, since GeneSYS is probably lying about it anyways.
- Discussed:GeneSYS: "I find it kind of funny, in the dictionary sense of the term, when I request assistance from homo sapiens beings, they believe that a murderous, truth-fabricating, crapshoot AI will actually carry out with its truth-fabrication and reward them with their malnutritional object of desire."
- Conversed: "Oh, look, she's being promised cake. It's probably going to be a lie."
- Implied: While the game never explicitly shows the cake or mentions it, subtle hints and clues scattered throughout the story suggest its existence.
- Deconstructed: This petty act of dog kicking results in Alice turning against GeneSYS and helping defeat it.
- Reconstructed: GeneSYS skillfully uses the lie to manipulate Alice into helping it more by Moving the Goalposts each time she does what it asks. She doesn’t catch on until it’s too late.
- Played For Laughs: GeneSYS insists that its actions aren't a Portal reference, even more so than it insists that there will be cake. That turns out to be a lie.
Back to The Cake Is a Lie
