Basic Trope: A person telling the story who lies and/or hides info from the audience.
- Straight: Throughout the story random people seem to act hostile towards the main character Alice. In the end we find out she feels guilty about something, and thinks that everyone knows when they actually don't.
- Exaggerated: The whole previous story is contradicted by the ending.
- Downplayed:
- The narrator has plenty of details, although based on the story it's easy to call into question if the narrator remembered things correctly based on the events that happened beforehand.
- The narrator tells the general story correctly, but tends to exaggerate and downplay a few minor details.
- Justified:
- The narrator is the Big Bad, and is actually writing this down.
- Alternately, the narrator just doesn't have a good memory. Or is insane.
- The story is the narrator's diary, so naturally the narrator would be picky about what they write down.
- Bob retells a story about Alice's but keep missing the point because he's not as genre savvy as the reader and unable to read her mind.
- The narrator is an adult retelling an event from their childhood that they can't properly remember.
- The narrator has self-esteem issues and wants to make themselves look good.
- The narrator is making an educated guess as to what happened based on the few clues still available.
- Inverted:
- The narrator knows everything and Cannot Tell a Lie.
- The Narrator always tells the truth. The characters however all lie, omit details and tell the truth From a Certain Point of View.
- The in-universe listener/reader/viewer/player is the unreliable one.
- Subverted: The narrator lies, but then a twist comes that proves that he was truthful.
- Double Subverted: Then another twist comes proving him false.
- Parodied:
- Zig Zagged: The narrator tells scene X straight but scene Y dishonestly.
- Averted: The narrator tells the story straight.
- Enforced: "This is kind of a lame Twist Ending and everyone will see it coming a country mile off. Unless...I change the narrator character to someone who has a reason to conceal certain facts. Yes, that should do it."
- Lampshaded: "Yes, my notes skipped over that."
- Invoked: "It's Lenny the Liar! Tell us how you got that scar, Lenny!"
- Exploited: Bob wants a story to get out but needs for some details to be concealed so it won't be traced back to him. So he gives it to Lenny the Liar, who will add and subtract bits of the story at random to make himself sound better or to make the tale more interesting.
- Defied: "Sometimes, storytellers lie. Sometimes they keep things from you in an attempt to screw with your mind. I promise you, dear reader, that I will not do this."
- Discussed: "When I read Bob's account of events, I bore in mind that he is not known for being very forthcoming."
- Conversed: "So Alice was keeping that secret throughout the story, and I never even suspected. Did you?"
- Deconstructed: There are errors and omissions in the narrator's story, but nothing the narrator gets wrong is material.
- Reconstructed: The narrator makes what seems to make uncritical errors, but the slight changes to the story collectively change something about the message.
- Played For Laughs: Alice, Bob, and Charlie's recalling of the events are sometimes over the top, portraying everyone else as idiots. Charlie, the Cloudcuckoolander, describes something that looks like a Quirky Work, as opposed to Alice and Bob whose narrations are at least plausible.
- Played For Drama:
- Alice's recalling of the events is inaccurate because her memories are fading fast, and she has to be reminded of even the most basic parts of the story, including which one is Bob and which one is Charlie.
- Alice has self-esteem issues... and, she portrays herself in a worse manner in the story than what actually happened. Instead of trying to impress people, she genuinely believes she is worthless and everyone hates her. Her character arc begins after Bob realizes some details in her story don't hold up to scrutiny.
- Bob and Charlie are reading Alice's self-loathing story in text form. It quickly becomes a race against time to find her once her tale starts to read more and more like a suicide note.
There may be a link back to Unreliable Narrator, but we've heard these links are less than accurate.
