History Main / DeceptiveLegacy

* Manga/{{Mars}:

** A bit later, Obi-Wan tells Luke that Darth Vader killed his father. [[LukeIAmYourFather Vader reveals that to be a lie]] at the end of ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', though Obi-Wan considers Anakin dead FromACertainPointOfView once he went over to the Dark Side and became Vader, and genuinely grieved his loss.

** A bit later, Obi-Wan tells Luke that Darth Vader killed his father. [[LukeIAmYourFather Vader reveals that to be a lie]] at the end of ''Film/TheEmpireStrikeBack'', though Obi-Wan considers Anakin dead FromACertainPointOfView once he went over to the Dark Side and became Vader, and genuinely grieved his loss.

* ''Franchise/StarWars'': In ''Film/ANewHope'', Obi-Wan tells Luke that Darth Vader killed his father. We know that [[LukeIAmYourFather Vader reveals that to be a lie]] (after a fashion: Obi-Wan considered Anakin dead, and grieved his loss, once he went over to the Dark Side and became Vader).
** Also, Uncle Owen told Luke that his father was a navigator on a spice freighter, in an effort to get Luke to forget about leaving home and becoming a Jedi.

* ''Series/ShesGottaHaveIt'': Mars' mom confesses to him that his father isn't really his birth father. His real birth father had a troubled relationship with her and left when Mars was about a year old. She let him think his father was also his birth father to avoid difficulties. When Mars asks, his mom admits she has no idea of where his birth father's gone.

So they'll tell a comforting lie or spin an embellishment of the truth that will allow the child to grow up proud of (or at the least, not ashamed of and humiliated by) their DisappearedDad or MissingMom. If the vitriol is sufficient, the reverse will also be true. The lie told about the parent is to make the child ashamed, and the truth is they are a better person than the child was led to believe.

* In the ''Anime/SpeedRacer'' episode "Man on the Lam", an escaped convict comes across a house in the woods where a little a blind girl lives all alone. He enthusiastically greets and hugs her, commenting on how big and heavy she had gotten. She tells him that her father had died and her mother was off making money for surgery so she could see again. The man tells her that he was an old friend of her father. It is later revealed that she is friends with Sprital. Leading and after the storm, he takes Speed hostage and makes him drive to where the loot was stashed. This leads to a mountain chase and shootout with the police and other criminals involved in the robbery ending with the man getting mortally injured and telling speed to give his eyes to the little girl who was his daughter.

** ''ComicBook/XFactor'': Hangman's ex, the mother of his son, lied and told the boy, Terry, that his dad is a super hero when the opposite is true. Hangman is astonished to hear this, but goes back and tries to do something heroic for the sake of making his son proud.

* ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'': Chick's wife, ashamed of his gambling problem, and angry that he showed up unannounced to see his son before going into space tells their small son that Chick was "a salesman". She changes her story, though, when the news reveals that Chick is on the teams going to save Earth from a giant asteroid.
* The eponymous character of ''Film/ForrestGump'' has a DisappearedDad and his mom tells people that "he's on vacation." Though Forrest tells us that she told him that "he's on vacation" means he's never coming back, we don't see her clarify this for other people.

* ''Film/{{Wonder Woman|2017}}'': Hippolyta tells Diana that she so much wanted a child to love that she sculpted a child statue of clay, and beseeched the gods to breathe life into it until Zeus granted her wish. The truth is that Zeus and Hippolyta conceived Diana in the human manner. The clay story is to prevent Diana finding out she's really a demigoddess... which Diana does eventually discover. [[spoiler:The fact she was a demigoddess would in itself not have been a problem on its own -- what Hippolyta was really trying to conceal was the true reason why Diana was born: to kill her brother Ares, as only a god can kill another god]].

* A variation on ''Series/{{Jessie}}''. Ravi tells Jessie of his first day as the adopted child of the Rosses. He mentions his surprise they had a small bed for his komodo dragon and how his room wasn't quite ready yet. In the flashbacks, we see the bed is a crib and the room quite obviously a nursery as the Rosses frantically try to hide all the baby toys. Ignoring the waves of Luke and Emma, Jessie states that it almost sounds as if the Rosses expected Ravi to be an infant rather than ten years old. Ravi realizes this is the case and upset that not only was he not the child they wanted but they hid it from him.

* ''Series/ShesGottaHaveIt'': Mars' mom confesses to him that his father isn't really his birth father. His real birth father had a troubled relationship with her, and left when Mars about one year old. She let him think his father was also his birth father to avoid difficulties. When Mars asks, his mom admits she has no idea of where his birth father's gone.

* Selina Meyer of ''Series/{{Veep}}'' grew up believing her late father was a warm-hearted man who built up the family fortune and loved her deeply. He always bought her snowglobes from his business trips and a horse that her mother later sold off. Selina considered her mother a cold woman who just lived off the fortune and treated Selina badly. On a trip home, however, Selina discovers the truth: Her father had been cheating with his secretary for years and died having sex with her. ''He'' was the one who sold off Selina's horse to pay debts as he was a terrible businessman and the "business trips" were just trysts with the secretary who was also the one buying Selina the snowglobes. To top it all off, it's mentioned the mistress kept getting taken to the doctor, indicating Selina's dad was forcing her to get abortions and the woman had a breakdown after his death. Selina is rocked to realize her father was a total scumbag (just like Selina's ex-husband) and Selina's mom was really the financial wiz who allowed her daughter to hate her for years rather than ruin the image of her wonderful father.

* The protagonist of ''VisualNovel/DaughterForDessert'' never told Amanda the full truth about Lainie while she was growing up. Cecilia, preying on Amanda’s desire to know more, feeds her a version of her mother’s life that makes him out to be a villian in order to drive Amanda away from her father.

* On ''Series/ShamelessUS'', Kev is worried after a health scare and insists on multiple tests. He's thrown when the doctors inform him that he is a very rare breed of genetics. This leads to Kev making the discovery that he descends from a community that was basically cut off from the rest of the world by a flood in the 1800s and not found until decades later. It also turns out he's basically the result of years of inbreeding among his ancestors and his real name is Bart.

* Callie in ''Film/GhostbustersAfterlife'', Callie grew up believing that her father lost his mind and told her children the same. Her daughter Phoebe is furious to discover Callie kept from her that her grandfather was a brilliant scientist, not insane, and the closest thing to a superhero their world has.

* The Disney Channel series ''Series/AndiMack'' uses this as the plot. On her 13th birthday, Andi is happy when her cool older sister Bex returns to town after a few years away. Later that night, however, Bex breaks to Andi the truth: [[spoiler:Their "mother" is actually her grandmother as Bex is Andi's real mom.]] Andi handling this new dynamic drives the show (and her initial reaction provides the page quote).

Usually this is a DisappearedDad being lionized or demonized, but occasionally it's the MissingMom. See also DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Hades}}'', Zagreus's father Hades is left such despair from losing his wife that he forbids anyone in the Underworld from speaking her name. He also lies to his son that Nyx is his mother rather than Persephone.

* Implied in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil6'': Jake Muller's mother left him a note when she died, which included the lines "Please, don't hate your father. I'm sure he loves you and is thinking about you". Jake's father is [[spoiler: [[BigBad Albert]] [[EvilutionaryBiologist Wes]][[AGodAmI ker]]]]. Also, there is no evidence he even knew Jake existed.

* ''Series/{{Rake}}'': In Season 5, [[spoiler:Kate]] is told by her mother and sister she was actually conceived from a tryst with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Plimpton George Plimpton]], to her shock. They had kept this from her for many years.

* In the ''Anime/SpeedRacer'' episode "Man on the Lam", an escaped convict comes across a house in the woods where a little a blind girl lives all alone. He enthusiastically greets and hugs her, commenting on how big and heavy she had gotten. She tells him that her father had died and her mother was off making money for surgery so she could see again. The man tells her that he was an old friend of her father. It is later revealed that she is friends with Sprital. Leading and after the storm he takes Speed hostage and makes him drive to where the loot was stashed. This leads to a mountain chase and shootout with the police and other criminals involved in the robbery ending with the man getting the mortally injured and telling speed to give his eyes to the little girl who was his daughter.

** ''ComicBook/{{Daredevil}}'': Played with. The Kingpin killed Echo's father, but honored the man's DyingWish to raise her like his own. So Fisk told Echo Daredevil killed her father. She eventually found out the truth. It was not pretty.
* In ''ComicBook/KickAss'', Big Daddy tells Hit Girl that her mother was killed by the mob, fuelling their RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the Genovese family. It's revealed however, [[spoiler: that her mother is very much alive, and Big Daddy simply snuck off with her when she was an infant, so he could raise her to be LittleMissBadass and live out his fantasy of being a vigilante superhero. After Big Daddy is killed, she goes back to her mother, who had been searching for her for years.]]

* ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'': Chick's wife, ashamed of his gambling problem, and angry that he showed up unnanounced to see his son before going into space tells their small son that Chick was "a salesman". She changes her story, though, when the news reveals that Chick is on the teams going to save Earth from a giant asteroid.

* ''Film/RookieOfTheYear'': Henry's mother told him growing up about his great father who was a baseball pitcher, when in reality he left when she was pregnant with Henry. Subverted by the fact that Henry's grandmother had told him the truth years ago, and he'd long since made his peace with it.

* In ''Film/TheWaterboy'', Bobby Boucher's mother tells him his father was a missionary who died of thirst in the desert. Later on, she admits that she lied, and that his dad actually left her for another woman.
* ''Film/{{Wonder Woman|2017}}'': Hippolyta tells Diana that she so much wanted a child to love that she sculpted a child statue of clay, and beseeched the gods to breathe life into it, until Zeus granted her wish. The truth is that Zeus and Hippolyta conceived Diana in the human manner. The clay story is to prevent Diana finding out she's really a demigoddess... which Diana does eventually discover. [[spoiler:The fact she was a demigoddess would in itself not have been a problem on its own -- what Hippolyta was really trying to conceal was the true reason why Diana was born: to kill her brother Ares, as only a god can kill another god]].

* ''Series/Charmed2018'' begins with Mel and Maggie both thrown when Macy shows up, revealing she's the half-sister they never knew existed. It gets wilder as all three discover they're witches, a fact their mother long hid from them. However, when going over some DNA tests, Macy discovers that while she and Maggie share 53% of their DNA as sisters would, Mel only has 23%. Which means ''Mel'' is really the half-sister who was raised with Maggie while Macy was handed off to her father while Maggie was duped into believing that she shared a absente father with Mel. Needless to say, none of the trio take this very well.
* On ''Series/{{Continuum}}'', women with the same name are being killed and Kiera realizes the time-travelling crooks are trying to eliminate her by killing her grandmother. Kiera has already tracked down the woman she believes is her grandmother, remembering her mom's stories of a strong, brave and hard-working crusader and thus concludes it's an activist lawyer. However, Kiera realizes this woman lacks the distinctive birthmark her grandmother had. Which means her ''real'' grandmother is a troublesome homeless woman with a criminal record.

* On ''Series/FamilyMatters'' Jimmy Baines drops by the house, claiming to be an old college friend although neither Carl or Harriet remember him. That night, Jimmy confesses the truth to Carl: He's Harriet and Rachel's supposedly dead father. He explains that he was overwhelmed being a father and so walked out on the family when the girls were little. For a time, Jimmy sent over cards and money but his wife finally wrote back to tell him to stop. She had told the girls that their father had been shot down during the Korean War as she wanted them to "think he was a hero, not a heel." Jimmy wants to simply leave but Carl convinces him to tell his daughters the truth and after their initial anger, they accept a new chance to know him.

** However, Alicia and boyfriend Danny manage to find Beatriz's long-hidden suicide note revealing the real reason she took her life. She had been ranting to staff manager Helen on suspecting Santiago and Gigi were sleeping together, bringing up how Santiago had confessed to a one-night stand with a woman long ago. Trying to calm her down Helen [[spoiler: [[INeverSaidItWasPoison accidentally let slip]] that ''she'' was the woman Santiago had slept with. A stunned Beatriz did the math to realize this meant Helen's son, Jason, was actually Santiago's. After her death, Helen never told either Santiago, Jason or her husband the truth behind Jason's parentage.]]

* ''Series/MightyMed'': Double subverted: Alan Diaz has never met his father. Horace told him it is because his father is a great and powerful superhero with an equally great and powerful enemy, so for Alan's safety, the family can have no contact with him. Alan and Skylar dig up Alan's file and find the man they believe to be his father, Nelson. But when they meet him, he's an odd, slovenly, broke and unemployed [[{{Muggles}} Normo]]. Horace figures out where they went and comes to collect them. Alan, in frustration and determination endangers Nelson, only to hurt him. Then he endangers ''himself'' only to have Nelson get badly injured shoving him out of harm's way. Once Horace sends the kids on their way, the truth is revealed: [[spoiler: Nelson really ''is'' the great hero Horace told Alan he is. Nelson is ClarkKenting. He's covering his heroic physique with bad clothes, and staying in character as an unemployed, weirdo slob who is kind of off-putting, to protect his SecretIdentity.]]

* On ''Series/{{Mom}}'' Violet wants to know why Christy never talks about her father who left them before she was born. Grandmother Bonnie brings Violet to a grave to tell her that her father was abusive and that's why Christy never wanted to talk about him and happy he's out of their lives. Violet accepts it as she hugs her mother. As soon as she's out of earshot, Christy asks Bonnie [[spoiler: "So, whose grave is this?" Meaning Violet's father is alive but both women feel it's better Violet think he's dead rather than hunt him down.]]
* In ''Series/MyMadFatDiary'', Rae has been led to believe all her life that her DisappearedDad is living in the Outer Hebrides and is sending her regular postcards with news and inspirational quotes. It's eventually revealed that [[spoiler: Rae's mum is the one who has been writing them the whole time and has been lying to her. In reality she has no idea where her Dad really is nor has he ever tried to contact them. Rae takes it quite well, considering.]]

* Played for laughs on ''Series/ParksAndRecreation'' when Tom is trying to dig up dirt on [[ButtMonkey Jerry]]. He confronts him in the office on how he was adopted and gloating on Jerry keeping such a massive secret. The 60ish Jerry just stares off in disbelief as Tom realizes he had no idea.

** Beth reveals to brother Rick that she's known all along they descended from mermaids. She talks of how their ancestors survived that masscare and want to fight for their people as hybrids. However, Helen reveals the results of a DNA test showing that Beth and Rick are direct descendants of the baby of Charles. Beth is stunned to realize that rather than being victims of the massacre, she and Rick are descended from the ones who were ''doing'' the massacring.
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' has an unintentional version. Janeway talks with pride of how she was inspired to join Starfleet by the stories of her ancestor, Shannon O'Donnell who was an astronaut, one of the first Mars colonists and single-handedly pushed ahead for a special "Millennium Gate" tower against massive opposition. But going over some old Earth records, Janeway realizes that over the centuries, Shannon's "exploits" have been massively overblown. She was never an astronaut, she was only a consultant on the Tower and there was no massive opposition as it was welcomed with open arms. Janeway tries to cope, shrugging her big concern is how to break it to her aunt that the great family legend is false.

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': "Blendin's Game" reveals that Soos as a child, for eight years, got post cards from his father with the same message indicating he was too busy to come for his son's birthday but would definitely be there next year. Soos' Abuelita is all too aware that Soos' dad is never returning, but for the sake of her grandson upholds the lie that he ''wants'' to come, but can't because he's too busy. Soos figures it out for himself at age 12, and it destroys his birthday for him until Dipper and Mabel fight Grobnar vs. Blendin Blandin to give Soos a time wish so he can see his father and have happy birthdays from the past until their present.

* The series ''Twice In a Lifetime'' has a person dying and then given a chance to go back in time in a new body to sway their younger selves from a major mistake. Along the way, many discover the truth about their families.

* In ''Literature/TheMortalInstruments,'' Clary was told that her dad died before she was born and left no personal effects whatsoever. In reality, [[FirstEpisodeSpoiler her father is]] [[spoiler:Valentine, the BigBad]].

* ''Film/WonderWoman'': Hippolyta tells Diana that she so much wanted a child to love that she sculpted a child statue of clay, and beseeched the gods to breathe life into it, until Zeus granted her wish. The truth is that Zeus and Hippolyta conceived Diana in the human manner. The clay story is to prevent Diana finding out she's really a demigoddess... which Diana does eventually discover. [[spoiler:The fact she was a demigoddess would in itself not have been a problem on its own -- what Hippolyta was really trying to conceal was the true reason why Diana was born: to kill her brother Ares, as only a god can kill another god]].