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Created By: PS3D on July 15, 2011 Last Edited By: PS3D on March 1, 2013
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Turnabout Lies

"I Lied" "I Lied Too"

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Formerly known as "I Lied Too"

The villain may say "I Lied", proving their smug superiority to the hero, who also lied too, thus turning the tables on the villain!

In the film of The Green Lantern, Hector Hammond takes the ring and says "I lied", but Jordan had also lied too about the ring choosing someone.

Also, in Burn Notice, the most recent episode, Michael turns the table on Eve when he lied about things also.

EDIT: Title changed.
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Community Feedback Replies: 26
  • July 15, 2011
    neoYTPism
    ... this could use a better and more precise description, if only to make clearer what you'd consider to qualify as an example and what not.
  • July 15, 2011
    Stratadrake
    And it's Not A Subversion of I Lied.
  • July 15, 2011
    TooBah
    Done in the White Collar episode "Front Man". The Villain Of The Week starts to kill Neal after promising not to ("I Lied"). Neal gets him to open the Mac Guffin briefcase, which is empty ("I Lied, Too."). This may even be verbatim.
  • July 15, 2011
    Aielyn
    For the name, I'd recommend Turnabout Lies, as it quite neatly restricts it to the case where the lies are "competing". Comes from the old idiom "turnabout is fair play".
  • July 15, 2011
    Aminatep
    Of course it's a subversion, duh.
  • July 15, 2011
    Acebrock
    No it isn't. A subversion would be saying I lied after telling the truth.
  • July 15, 2011
    Micah
    Compare Rash Equilibrium.
  • July 15, 2011
    GinaInTheKingsRoad
    I Am Not Left Handed, either.
  • July 15, 2011
    Shnakepup
    I like Turnabout Lies as well. Better explains what you're going for here.
  • July 17, 2011
    NoirGrimoir
    • In know this has happened multiple times on Scrubs especially between Carla and Turk, but I can't remember the exact wording of the specific example I'm thinking of.
  • July 18, 2011
    civilian
    Obscure example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS63vGDoLJ4 at 1:10 "Everytime I listen to my heart, it tells me you were lying from the start. But so was I!"
  • July 18, 2011
    deuxhero
    Turnabout Lies just makes me think of Ace Attorney...
  • July 18, 2011
    Aielyn
    That's what made me think of the term "turnabout" in the first place, deuxhero. Despite its extensive use in that series, though, it's certainly not exclusive to it.

    It might be worth adding one of those "Not to be confused with..." type disclaimers in the description, though.
  • July 18, 2011
    elwoz
    Does the infamous "I'm not left-handed" (... more Flynning ...) "I'm not left-handed either" sequence from The Princess Bride count?
  • July 18, 2011
    crazysamaritan
    Left-handed should. This is related to I Know You Know I Know, except they're not done with foreknowledge of one another.
  • July 19, 2011
    PS3D
    ^^ That's right, but I need a better name.
  • July 19, 2011
    DaibhidC
    • The Red Dwarf episode "Justice", Lister and the Simulant agree to meet unarmed:
      Simulant: Guess what? (produces knife) I lied.
      Lister: Guess what? (produces metal pole)' So did I.
      Simulant: But I lied... (produces gun) ...twice.
      Lister: Ah. I didn't think of that.
  • July 19, 2011
    69BookWorM69
    Hmm. Sounds like part of the plot of Aunt Dimity and the Family Tree. To wit, a local seamstress and jelly-donut genius wins a vacation in Mexico, pretends to be a British aristocrat, meets a charming and wealthy Mexican man, and offhandedly invites him to visit her. He takes her up on the offer, and Hilarity Ensues when a number of her friends help her continue the charade. She eventually reveals her deception, and he reveals that he isn't a wealthy Mexican, but a retired fellow Brit who worked on cruise ships for several decades.
  • July 19, 2011
    PS3D
    Can anyone suggest a better name?
  • October 10, 2011
    ryanasaurus0077
    How about Deception Backfire?
  • October 10, 2011
    LobsterMagnus
    Captain Janeway and the Villain Of The Week do this to each other at the end of the Star Trek Voyager episode Counterpoint.
  • October 10, 2011
    69BookWorM69
    I also think this isn't limited to villain and hero; it seems to come up in the denouement of romantic plots such as the Aunt Dimity example.
  • October 10, 2011
    surgoshan
    Lie Vs Lie
  • February 7, 2012
    crazysamaritan
    This was up so long ago, if the original troper isn't going to maintain it, I'll grab it.
  • February 7, 2012
    SonofRojBlake
    Surely this HAS to be called "I Am Not Left Handed Either".
  • March 1, 2013
    elwoz
    I am discarding this because it has gone for more than a year with no reply. It seems like it might be a trope, but I suspect it overlaps with enough other stuff to not be worth bothering about. Don't let that stop you from resurrecting it if you want; but please do see it gets finished in that case.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=ixkol7j43f9f4kesjbzm6ew2&trope=DiscardedYKTTW