History Main / TruthSerums

* No one can tell lies in close proximity to the griffins in Creator/TamoraPierce's [[Literature/TortallUniverse Tortall]] books. Their feathers have associated properties like dispelling magical illusions.

* In Henry Seslar's short story "Examination Day", when a child reaches the age of 12, they are made to take a Government Intelligence Test. To prevent ''cheating'' the child been tested is told to drink a Truth Drug in a form of a buttermilk-like liquid which tastes faintly like peppermint.
** The reason is that the drug compels the subject to answer the IQ tests truthfully, making sure they do not try to deliberately answer the questions wrong in case the child in question found out what happens to those whose [[spoiler: intelligence quotient is higher than what the Government regula­tion allow,]] they are killed.

* ''{{UFO}}''. The 'GL-7 serum' is used on a captured alien, but it either kills him due to his different biology or he somehow [[InvoluntarySuicideMechanism commits suicide to prevent himself from talking]].

** Both 2nd and 3rd Edition had a Potion of Truth that forced anyone who drank it to speak the truth. The 3rd Edition version allowed the drinker to make a saving throw to refuse to answer a question.

* In ''[[MeetTheParents Meet the Fockers]]'', Pam's father Jack, suspicious of Greg, injects him with sodium pentothal. Greg forgets after five seconds that he'd had a syringe jammed into his neck, and proceeds to get on the mic and spill his guts to the whole family reunion about his lust for Pam's mom, [[spoiler:his (supposedly) illegitimate son]], and Pam's pregnancy.

-->-- '''T-Rex''', ''[[http://www.qwantz.com/archive/000416.html Dinosaur Comics]]''

* ''Literature/FireStarter'' mentions that among other things, Andy's ability to persuade people via mentally "pushing" them included the ability to get them to volunteer information they might otherwise keep to themselves, but that he had to keep from overdoing it. For instance, when chasing down the Shop agents who'd kidnapped his daughter, he was able to get a girl who'd seen them going by to reveal which way their van went by pushing her, but with just a light tap. As the novel explains, had he pushed her too hard, she would have told him (and truly believed) that the van had gone in any direction he wanted it to go, including straight up into the sky.

* Spider Robinson wrote a short story "Satan's Children" about the unexpected positive effects of a drug that made people permanently incapable of lying. It wreaked particular havoc among politicians and prominent religious leaders (although it didn't break *all* of them).

* The protagonist of one of LeoGursky's detective comedy series is a [[TheChewToy Chew Toy]] AbsentMindedProfessor pharmacologist. One of the substances he tested was claimed to be a "Super Truth Serum" and explicitly said to be pentothal derivative, and he has one capsule in his pocket he forgets about. Naturally, when the mafia captures him, the {{Mook}} ordered to search him is a drug addict, finds the capsule, and soon HilarityEnsues. Still more believable than usual: apart from the nonstop talking, the {{Mook}} giggled, drooled and looked like the heavily drugged idiot he was, so even after he collapsed the boss didn't get what was going on until the protagonist explained it.
* In the HarryTurtledove novel ''{{Worldwar}}: In The Balance" the aliens try their truth drug on one of the protagonists, but all it does is make him rather giggly. With some difficulty, he manages to keep his cover story straight. The aliens don't know this, so they believe his story that he's an innocent civilian and let him go.

* In MercedesLackey's ''HeraldsOfValdemar'' series, the Heralds have a two-stage Truth Spell. Stage one functions as a LieDetector; stage two compels the bespelled person to answer any question truthfully.

* ''PhoenixForce'' uses scopalomine, administered by its [[TheMedic team medic]] Calvin James due to the risk of possible heart failure.
* No one can tell lies in close proximity to the griffins in TamoraPierce's [[Literature/TortallUniverse Tortall]] books. Their feathers have associated properties like dispelling magical illusions.

* Combined with a BrownNote in the ''StarTrekNewFrontier'' novel "The Quiet Place". The Redeemer Overlord, along with a killing word, has a truth-telling word, that compels a person to spill his guts. In fact, it makes the victim tell every truth he's ever known, and then kills him. And then it's subverted in the fact that the victim was trying to get them to stop torturing another victim for information...but they keep going anyway because, even though he did tell the truth, the other victim still could be hiding something.
* The titular drug of Kallocain by Swedish author Karin Boye made people respond truthfully to all questions. Problem for the [[TheEmpire Universal State]]: [[spoiler: It turns out everybody hates the system of government.]]

* Played fairly straight in the first book of the ''Blood of Kerensky'' trilogy set in the ''BattleTech'' universe during Phelan's interrogation by the Clans. The procedure (complete with IV drip for the truth drugs and sensors to monitor the subject's vital signs) was still involved enough to suggest that even ([[ZeeRust presumably]]) 31st-century medical science might be able to make this kind of thing ''effective'', but not exactly ''safe''.
* In ''BoredOfTheRings,'' a parody of ''LordOfTheRings,'' Goodgulf the Wizard used "one of his secret potions[[note]]Probably Sodium Pentothal.[[/note]]" to get the truth about how he obtained the Ring out of Dildo Bugger.
* In the ''XWingSeries'', it is mentioned that [=CorSec=] officers undergo a chemical interrogation as part of their training. When it was done to Corran Horn, he ended up confessing to every childhood misdeed committed in his entire life, which would have been amusing even at the time had the interrogator not provided a transcript to his father (A fellow officer). While also amusing and somewhat disturbing to the reader, the existence of not only such drugs used by a police force but stronger ones available to groups like, oh, the Empire, makes one wonder about how Leia managed to hold up to an interrogation by Darth Vader, when the arguably less-vicious Ysanne Isard had methods that would (with only mild exaggeration) have Corran "spilling secrets his ''mother'' had forgotten while he was in the womb".
* SimonRGreen's ''HawkAndFisher'' series contains a scene in which murder suspects are interrogated under a truth spell. The spell doesn't prevent them from withholding information or answering in a deceptive way, though, so all of them get away with saying "no" when asked if they committed the murders. [[spoiler:Turns out there are two murderers, each of whom committed a different murder; when Hawk asks each of them if they killed Blackstone ''and'' Bowman, both murderers were able to truthfully answer no.]]
* Subverted in ThomasPynchon's ''GravitysRainbow''. Slothrop is administered sodium amytal twice in the course of the narrative. In both cases he is reduced to surreal babblings and squicky nightmares instead of volunteering information.

* In the first ''{{Quiller}}'' spy novel, the title character is injected with a drug designed to make him high and therefore talkative; they get some facts out of the subsequent WordSalad, but not enough. Quiller does reveal too much about his obsession for a girl he's met however, so they decide to use that angle to force his co-operation.

* In ''[[MeetTheParents Meet the Fockers]]'', Pam's father Jack, suspicious of Greg, injects him with sodium pentothal. Greg forgets after five seconds that he'd had a syringe jammed into his neck, and proceeds to get on the mic and spill his guts to the whole family reunion about his lust for Pam's [[HotMom mom]], [[spoiler:his (supposedly) illegitimate son]], and Pam's pregnancy.

* In ''{{V}}: The Final Battle'', the hero Donovan is injected with an alien truth serum and fulfills this trope completely. This is an ''alien'' formula, so...

* Creator/RobertAHeinlein used this trope a couple of times.

* ''{{UFO}}''. The 'GL-7 serum' is used on a captured alien, but it either kills him or he somehow commits suicide to prevent himself from talking.

* No one can tell lies in close proximity to the one of griffins in TamoraPierce's [[TortallUniverse Tortall]] books.

* The ''HarryPotter'' books feature a magical truth serum called Veritaserum. It's mentioned quite a lot, but the only time it's actually used was on an unconscious [[spoiler:Barty Crouch Jr., disguised as Mad-Eye Moody]].

* ''Jumping Jack Flash''. Whoopi Goldberg is injected with a truth serum by Jim Belushi, but she escapes. She then proceeds to say exactly what she's thinking to everyone she meets, including her JerkAss boss.

* In the HarryTurtledove novel ''Worldwar: In The Balance" the aliens try their truth drug on one of the protagonists, but all it does is make him rather giggly. With some difficulty, he manages to keep his cover story straight. The aliens don't know this, so they believe his story that he's an innocent civilian and let him go.

** "Methuselah's Children". The government uses a truth drug on members of the Howard Families to try to find out the secret of the Families' longevity. It works, but the investigators don't believe what the members tell them and assume they just know the truth.

* ''The Dukes Of Hazzard'' had an episode where Roscoe returns from a police convention with, among other things, a syringe filled with truth serum. Boss Hogg sits on the syringe about halfway through the episode, injecting himself with the serum. Hilarity ensues when he can't stop telling the truth, including calling the IRS and confessing to cheating on his taxes for several years.

* White Wolf's ''Vampire: The Requiem'' has several methods of forcing somebody to tell the truth, from the gentle to the awesome. On the gentle side, "Majesty" can compel somebody to want to confess their innermost secrets to you. On the awesome side, the "Liar's Plague" causes bugs to swarm out of a subject's mouth when they lie.

* Played straight in ''KGB'' but with a slight twist. The serum used by the protagonist at one point is a new prototype and has very severe side effects. Namely, it's lethal, so PC must extract all necessary information quickly.

May overlap with IllNeverTellYouWhatImTellingYou

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' had Kim hit by a Truth Ray, with the full effect of the entire trope: not only could she not lie, she was compelled to say anything and everything, in [[TooMuchInformation far more detail than was needed]]. She confessed a crush to members of the sports teams, and told her dad's bosses everything her dad found annoying about them (one tells ''very bad'' jokes, one won't stop talking about his home country, and one obviously wears a wig). She ended up covering her mouth to suppress the truth compulsion. Ron, who was hit by the same ray, instead becomes more confident and popular. He does things like admitting to Mr. Barkin that not only did he not read the assigned book, but that it was boring and dumb, earning Barkin's respect by stating an opinion he'd secretly shared, and winning the heart of a beautiful girl by talking about the beauty of her eyes.

* In the film adaptation of ''RedDragon'', Agent Graham mentions that hospital staff tried Sodium Amytal on Hannibal Lecter to find out where he hid one of his victims. Lecter gave them a recipe for dip.

* Subverted in an issue of ''Comicbook/{{Batman}}'', when Batman uses sodium pentothal on an opponent. The opponent is barely able to answer one question before passing out.

* ''TheGunsOfNavarone''. When Major Franklin is critically injured, the Allied saboteur team contemplates letting the Germans capture him, but fear they may interrogate him with scopolamine and learn all of the plan. Finally, the leader uses the opportunity provided by a radio communication to feed him false "new orders", and abandon him. He's taken to a military hospital and spits out the false orders under the drug's effect.

* ''TheGunsOfNavarone''. The Germans use scopalomine on Major Franklin to find out the Allied plans. It works, but unfortunately for the Nazis he was (unknown to him) given false information in the hope they would use TruthSerum on him.

* ''TankGirl''. The Rippers try to use nitrous oxide as a TruthSerum to find out if Tank Girl and Jet Girl are spies for Water and Power. It doesn't work at all: the girls only give nonsense responses.