History Main / AppealToAudacity

What happens when a GenreSavvy character realizes that the incredibly absurd story he's just been told ''has'' to be true -- for the simple reason that no one in his right mind would claim such a ridiculous story ''unless'' it were true.

* In ''VideoGame/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyJusticeForAll'', one testimony has a witness claim that they saw the defendant, a magician by the stage name "Maximillion Galactica", murder the victim then escape by ''flying into the sky''. Although it's subverted in that Phoenix is the only one who actually believes the witness if the player picks the opinion to believe him. Although incidentally [[spoiler:he wasn't actually lying. He just believed that what he saw was the murderer flying.]]

* In ''VideoGame/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyTrialsAndTribulations'', has [[TheFriendNobodyLikes Larry Butz]] show his masterpiece drawing that he says is ''exactly'' what he saw at the time. The masterpiece shows a silhouette flying above a burning bridge. ''Nobody'' believes it's real... until Edgeworth realizes that Larry's drawing ''is'' correct. [[spoiler: Larry was lying on his back and looking up at the bridge, so what he actually saw was a body swinging ''underneath'' the bridge, but then drew the scene upside-down]].

* In ''PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyJusticeForAll'', one testimony has a witness claim that they saw the defendant, a magician by the stage name "Maximillion Galactica", murder the victim then escape by ''flying into the sky''. Although it's subverted in that Phoenix is the only one who actually believes the witness if the player picks the opinion to believe him. Although incidentally [[spoiler:he wasn't actually lying. He just believed that what he saw was the murderer flying.]]

* In ''PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyTrialsAndTribulations'', has [[TheFriendNobodyLikes Larry Butz]] show his masterpiece drawing that he says is ''exactly'' what he saw at the time. The masterpiece shows a silhouette flying above a burning bridge. ''Nobody'' believes it's real... until Edgeworth realizes that Larry's drawing ''is'' correct. [[spoiler: Larry was lying on his back and looking up at the bridge, so what he actually saw was a body swinging ''underneath'' the bridge, but then drew the scene upside-down]].

* In ''PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyTrialsAndTribulations'', has [[FriendNobodyLikes Larry Butz]] show his masterpiece drawing that he says is ''exactly'' what he saw at the time. The masterpiece shows a silhouette flying above a burning bridge. ''Nobody'' believes it's real... until Edgeworth realizes that Larry's drawing ''is'' correct. [[spoiler: Larry was lying on his back and looking up at the bridge, so what he actually saw was a body swinging ''underneath'' the bridge, but then drew the scene upside-down]].

Contrast CassandraTruth, in which authority figures refuse to believe an implausible tale. A subsection of RefugeInAudacity.

* In ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'', Alfred uses this to explain Bruce Wayne's injuries he incurs as the Batman. In one instance he claims that Bruce was injured by 'falling out of a hot air balloon onto a table of cheese blintzes' because the story was 'too ridiculous to be disbelieved.'

* Played straight, lampshaded, and subverted, in the comedy panel show ''Series/WouldILieToYou''. The premise of the show is that the two panellist teams must vote on whether the story/fact the member of the opposing team just read out about themselves is true or a lie. The stories often end up being ludicrous, and this trope is often played with, z log of the time being played straight.

* This trope is also the theory behind the propaganda technique known as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Lie the Big Lie]]. According to [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler Hitler]] and Goebbels, if you are going to lie, don't say something that sounds like it might be true. Say something so outrageous that people will think that it must be true, because no one would make up a story like that.

* In an episode of CounterMonkey, Noah shares the tale of a D&D player he gamed with who never arrived on time, to the increasing frustration of his teammates. On one occasion he is two and a half hours late (despite living fifteen minutes away) and calls to explain that he was on his way but had to turn back because "I forgot my pants". Noah concludes that this ''must'' be the truth, because no one would make up such a dumb excuse, especially since the player was the one to call and had plenty of time to think up something better.

->''What I'm worried we're in danger of doing here is, having heard something that is absurd and obviously not true, and saying that therefore it must be true...''

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* Seen in ''{{Literature/Doom}}''. Albert believes that Fly and Arlene aren't enemy spies because their story of riding Deimos to earth, defeating that wing of the invasion, and building a rocket to crash on earth is too ridiculous to be an effective lie. Lampshaded by Fly, who thinks that spies should be telling absurd stories if that's the trick to trust.

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* Played straight, lampshaded, and subverted, in the comedy panel show ''Series/WouldILieToYou?''. The premise of the show is that the two panellist teams must vote on whether the story/fact the member of the opposing team just read out about themselves is true or a lie. The stories often end up being ludicrous, and this trope is often played with, z log of the time being played straight.
** It's lampshaded at one point, such as in the page's quote.
--> David Mitchell: What I'm worried we're in danger of doing here is, having heard something that is absurd and obviously not true, and saying that therefore it must be true...
** In another episode David O'Doherty's claim was that he had made tiny leg warmers for birds, then went on to say that some of them were for swans. Despite how ridiculous and illogical everything sounded, Susan Calman said that she somehow thinks it could be true.
--> David Mitchell: Don't say that! Because that's what happens to your mind in this game. You say and you start to think, "the fact that he said swan and it seems impossible, is exactly what's so plausible about it"!

* UsefulNotes/{{Christianity}}, according to the early Christian writer Tertullian, whose "credo quia absurdum est" is [[OlderThanTheyThink possibly the earliest example of this trope.]]
** Unfortunately, this can be used for other religions, including the ChurchOfHappyology. At any rate, religions are originally very simple stories ("there is a God") that have had thousands of years to flesh out.
** It is perhaps worth noting that the official Church, with its strongly rationalistic bent, never cared much for this argument; Tertullian himself was regarded as a [[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10521a.htm schismatic]], if not an outright heretic.
** Despite any later feelings on the matter, this is one of the reasons Christianity became popular in the first place. At the time, Judea was bubbling with fledgling cults and political movements, mostly aimed against the Roman occupation. Generally these movements died when their leaders were caught and messily and publicly executed. The Christians, instead, came out with this story that their leader had ''come back to life'' and personally handed down leadership to one of his apostles. This was such a strange account that it caused many to wonder if there mustn't be something special going on.
** On a related note, Biblical scholars have something called the "criterion of embarrassment", which they use (along with other methods) to sort out which events of the New Testament are actual history. The criterion of embarrassment is basically "If it doesn't make Jesus look good (in a first-century context), then it probably really happened." This is why the crucifixion is well established as actual history; crucifixion was about the most disgraceful death that you could have in ancient Rome, and was reserved for slaves, pirates, and traitors. If the writers of the Gospels had wanted to make up a good death story for Jesus, it would have been very, ''very'' different.
** The Old Testament, in fact, also sets quite the precedent for this. While not always going into explicit detail, it does very often portray Israel's patriarchs as crafty and treacherous, "judges" (informal leaders) as despicable cowards or rash and foolhardy jerks, the priesthood as crooked and idolatrous, kings as corrupt and cruel, and its people in general as stubborn and wayward sheep always abandoning God at the first sign of trouble to go chasing after some powerful neighbor's shiny new idols and sacrificing their children to them. Had they written it entirely of their own volition, one does feel the Israelites would have tried to make themselves look a little bit better than that in the Bible.

* At the end of ''ComicBook/SuperiorSpiderMan'', Peter gives Miguel / Spider-Man 2099 a rushed explanation of Dr Octopus's GrandTheftMe. Miguel goes from ready to attack Peter to totally accepting. "Yeah, that sounds JUST stupid enough to be right."

* This trope is also the theory behind the propaganda technique known as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Lie the Big Lie]]. According to [[AdolfHitler Hitler]] and Goebbels, if you are going to lie, don't say something that sounds like it might be true. Say something so outrageous that people will think that it must be true, because no one would make up a story like that.

* In Creator/TamoraPierce's Literature/TortallUniverse, Aly (of the ''Trickster'' duology) explains to her friends that she [[spoiler:wasn't there to stop Sarai from eloping]] because [[spoiler:[[ItMakesSenseInContext she was being held captive by a god]].]] She points out that, since she's a spymaster, "You forget I like to tell lies that will be believed."

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' involves Hank getting sent to a discretionary board on the charges of fraudulently claiming worker's compensation. Hank is unable to disprove the government's claims until he brings in the yoga expert who cured him to help verify the timeline of when he got injured and when he got cured. The board is initially very unimpressed with the yoga expert -- but accept his story when Hank points out that the yoga expert is so obnoxious that Hank would have to have been suffering from a devastating injury indeed to be desperate enough to seek help from him.

-->--'''DavidMitchell''', ''WouldILieToYou''

* In the first book of ''TheWheelOfTime'', Queen Morgase chooses to believe Rand's story because it is simply too absurd to be a lie. She notes at the same time that a clever liar would take advantage of this trope, but decides not to act on that impression.
* In TamoraPierce's TortallUniverse, Aly (of the ''Trickster'' duology) explains to her friends that she [[spoiler: wasn't there to stop Sarai from eloping]] because [[spoiler: [[ItMakesSenseInContext she was being held captive by a god]].]] She points out that, since she's a spymaster, "You forget I like to tell lies that will be believed."

* ArthurCClarke's ''Literature/TalesFromTheWhiteHart'' series of short stories concerns a "scientist", Harry Purvis, that tells scientific {{tall tale}}s at a London pub called the White Hart. His outrageous stories' scientific logic is often called into question, but he is kept around for entertainment's sake. The exception is one story, "What Goes Up", totally made up to deal with an annoying conspiracy theorist. [[spoiler: The end reveals Harry's obvious bullshit is taken ''totally seriously'' by the conspiracy theorist, and poor Harry gets bombarded with mail by other nutjobs-turned-fans. [[HoistByHisOwnPetard In other words, the one story he never wanted anyone to believe was the only one people actually believed.]]]]
* In ''ASongOfIceAndFire'', this is how Brienne manages to convince several people that she was not the one who killed King Renly despite being one of the only people in the room with him when he died. If she were the culprit, wouldn't she come up with a better story than "evil demonic shadow did it?"

* On ''TheBradyBunch,'' Jan gets a locket as an anonymous gift; it came with a typewritten letter where the "e" is slightly off. Carol and Alice sneak into Mike's office to test his typewriter, only to get caught by the security guard. They explain the situation to him and he lets him go, concluding that no thief would make up that kind of story.

** In ''Series/StargateContinuum'', after he, Sam, and Mitchell have tried for some time to convince people they're in [[AlternateUniverse an alternate reality]], Daniel gets frustrated and snaps, "Seriously, who would make this shit up?!"

* A version of this appeared on ''TheSimpsons''. When the town thought that Skinner and Ms. Krabappel were having sexual relations at school, Skinner cleared his name by telling them he was a virgin. This worked because, according to Superintendent Chalmers, [[AManIsNotAVirgin no man anywhere would ever pretend to be a 45-year-old virgin]]. [[spoiler:The end implies that he was, in fact, lying]].

After all, think about it. What happens to someone in movieland who claims that aliens are taking over people's bodies and passing themselves off as the originals to act as a prelude to an alien invasion? Loony. And then, of course, the aliens come and kill us all. So considering the risk and reward of making an outrageous claim, why would anyone in his right mind say such a thing unless he had good reason to believe it? This doesn't even get into the fact that if someone is trying to manipulate you with lies, it is obviously in their best interest to come up with more plausible ones.

* In ''Series/TheITCrowd'', Roy's girlfriend tells him a ridiculous, incomprehensible story about the death of her parents. When Jen asks if she could have been lying, Roy answers, "Why would she lie? And if she was going to lie, why would she use this one? A ''fire'' at a ''Sea Parks?!'' It's wrecking my head! I mean if... if she had said that her parents had drowned, I'd be the happiest man in the world!"

* A version of this appeared on ''TheSimpsons''. When the town thought that Skinner and Ms. Krabappel were having sexual relations at school, Skinner cleared his name by telling them he was a virgin. This worked because, according to Superintendent Chalmers, [[AManIsNotAVirgin no man anywhere would ever pretend to be a 45-year-old virgin]].

* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial "Recap/DoctorWhoS3E3TheMythMakers", with no other options, and facing death, the Doctor and Steven tell Odysseus the truth of who they are and how they came to be on the plains outside of Troy. Odysseus decides that the story strains his credulity beyond anything he's ever heard, and therefore it's probably true or they would never have dared to tell it.

* In the Doctor Who episode ''Recap/DoctorWhoS3E3TheMythMakers'', with no other options, and facing death, the Doctor and Steven tell Odysseus the truth of who they are and how they came to be on the plains outside of Troy. Odysseus decides that the story strains his credulity beyond anything he's ever heard, and therefore it's probably true or they would never have dared to tell it.