False Reassurance / Literature

False Reassurances in Literature.

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General:

• An entire literary device. The omniscient narrator (author) tells us some information about the future which is true but which misleads the reader's expectations. John Irving likes this one and T. C. Boyle gives a (non-reassuring) example. 'I never wrote to her again'. This implies they never see each other again, but instead he simply visits (though as the ending implies they will get married and have kids, we assume he will never even send her a postcard or an e-mail).
• Many, conceivably most, of his lines across various depictions of the radiant angel Morningstar. Even his appearance might count.

By Title:

• In one of the later Anne of Green Gables books, Anne of Ingleside, Anne has an ongoing dilemma of how to respond when asked to admire Susan's calceolarias. Anne finds them ugly, but doesn't want to hurt Susan's feelings or tell a lie. In the end, she settles on, "Why, I've never seen such calceolarias in my life!" ...and mentally adds, "Thank heavens!"
• In the Belisarius Series, when he asks to have a private word with Narses during a meeting on neutral ground, Belisarius swears to the Malwa commander Damodara that nothing they will discuss will involve harm to Damodara. Damodara comments to Narses afterward that he realized that Belisarius made a Suspiciously Specific Denial in promising no harm would come to Damodara, but didn't mention anything about the Malwa Empire in general.
  • Later in the series, the Malwa intelligence boss Nanda Lal is assured that he of course will be attending the wedding of Toramanga, with whom he's conspiring to assassinate Rana Sanga. He never promised that any part of Lal's body below the neck would also be in attendance.
• "The Cask of Amontillado" has several; the most blatant:
  Fortunato: I shall not die of a cough!
  Montresor: True...
• Cradle Series: Lindon has just agreed to be mentored by Eithan while they are trapped in a monster-infested ruin. Eithan's first order: Run to the top of the stairs. As Lindon is doing so, Yerin points out that there are probably monsters up there. Eithan assures them both that, due to his power to see and hear everything in a very wide radius, he knows every inch of the ruins. Which is why he's sure that Lindon can handle the monsters that are waiting for him. Cue ambush.
• In the short story "The Crystal Crypt" by Philip K. Dick, Earth and Mars are on the brink of war. A spaceship, the last to depart Mars for Earth before passenger service is suspended, is searched by Martian officials for three saboteurs responsible for destroying a major Martian city. Each passenger is asked about the matter, the veracity of which is verified by a lie detector. Each passenger makes a statement something to the effect of, "I know nothing about any destruction of your city." Each statement is confirmed to be true, so the soldiers leave and the spaceship begins to take off. Later, it is learned that the city wasn't actually destroyed at all, but instead was miniaturized and placed inside a small globe, presumably disguised as a snow globe, and is being smuggled back to Earth by three passengers.
• In Deception Point, the aquaphobic protagonist is already nervous at the thought of going onto a boat and gets even more nervous when she learns it's smack dab in the middle of hammerhead shark-infested waters. To calm her, her love interest asks the helicopter pilot when the last time they saved someone from a hammerhead attack was, to which the pilot answers "Decades." However, he then immediately mentions an "idiot skin diver" last month, prompting the protagonist to say "You said you hadn't saved anyone in decades!" "Yeah, saved anyone. Usually we're too late. Those bastards kill in a hurry".
• In Robert Sheckley's Dimension Of Miracles, the protagonist ends up on an alternate Earth inhabited by sapient dinosaurs. He doesn't have the heart to tell them about the extinction of dinosaurs on his Earth... so instead he reassures them that in his world, no conflicts ever happen between mammals and dinos, and in fact "everybody loves dinosaurs".
• Used often in the Discworld novels:
  • In Going Postal, Reacher Gilt asks his butler (an Igor) "Do you think I'm insane, Igor?" Igor, like the rest of his clan, lives by a code that requires them to be honest to their masters, but also never to insult them. After some thought, he replies "I wouldn't find mythelf able to thay that, marthter." Igor, like all of his clan, lisps, so he's taking "refuge in strict linguistic honesty".
  • "You have only to walk through that door and you will never hear from me again", the offer Vetinari gives both Reacher at the end of the book and Moist at the beginning. The door leads to a pit with spikes at the bottom, which if you leap into it you'll never hear from anyone again, except possibly the Department of Post-Mortem Communications.
  • In Men at Arms, a troll retrophrenologist tells a client, "This won't hurt a bit." Phrenology, As You Know, is the "science" of measuring bumps on a person's head and using them to determine their personality traits. Retrophrenology works backwards, applying bumps to alter the patient's personality. It is known this doesn't work, but it provides employment and keeps money in circulation, so it all works out in the end. And for those who don't get the joke: no, it will not hurt "a bit". It will hurt a lot.
  • In Interesting Times, The Mole has failed his last mission, and so Lord Hong, mindful of his prior promise not to speak or write any order for the man's execution, folds an origami man without a head.
  • In Hogfather, when the Psychopathic Manchild finds that one of his flunkies is getting antsy about all the violent death, he tells him not to worry: "I'm on your side. A violent death is the last thing that'll happen to you." In fact, Teatime was fond of using these, to the extent that one of his henchmen noticed, and tendered his resignation holding a crowbar. It didn't help.
  • In Thief of Time, the head of the Ankh-Morpork Watchmaker's Guild visits Jeremy Clockson to make sure Clockson is taking his medicine. Jeremy's assistant Igor assures him that he sees his master measure a dose of the stuff every morning. What Igor doesn't tell him is that Jeremy then pours it down the sink, because he finds he works better without it.
  • Sgt. Jackrum of Monstrous Regiment often spouted the catchphrase, "Upon my oath, I am not a dishonest man," before doing something shady and dishonest. This is no mere case of Hypocritical Humor, however, as Jackrum is actually a woman. Main character Polly Perks eventually figures this out. He also used such variations as "Upon my oath I am not a violent man" while threatening people with a fatal skewering and "Upon my oath I am not a shouty man!" Bellowed, naturally. Most people coming face to face with Sgt. Jackrum who hear about his legendary pacifism decide not to test him.
  • Subverted in the narration of Lords and Ladies:
    Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
    Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
    Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
    Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
    Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
    Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
    The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
    No one ever said elves are nice.
  • Everyone knows that witches never lie. In Wyrd Sisters, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg use that belief to pull one over on basically the whole country, without ever telling an untruth. When Magrat calls them out on it, Granny responds, "We're bound to be truthful, but there's no call to be honest."
  • Rincewind sows discord among the Agatean soldiers in Interesting Times through Suspiciously Specific Denial, such as saying that the Silver Horde is not supported by a very specific number of bloodthirsty foreign ghosts. He is truthful, but not very many believe him. Lord Hong later accidentally validates Rincewind's claims by claiming that the intrusion of foreign ghosts have angered their own Agatean ghosts, who will be fighting on their side. The soldiers are less than enthusiastic about having ghosts on both sides, particularly since their own might be people they didn't part with on friendly terms... (It all has the result of many men deserting the army.)
  • Inverted Trope (a genuine reassurance taken as an implied threat) in Small Gods. Omnia is a country that's distrustful of mechanical engineering but very big on torture equipment. So when Urn produces his adjustable spanner, his Omnian companion can only think of one thing to compare it to, and gets worried. Urn reassures him by explaining "it's for twisting nuts off".
• The Dresden Files:
  • Grave Peril: At Bianca's costume party, Harry tells a vampire that Michael, dressed as a Knight Templar, is not really a Knight Templar. She then grabs his arm, and is burned by his faith. Harry didn't tell her that he's one of the world's three Knights of the Cross.
    Harry: Hands off the Fist of God.
  • Changes: The Red King pulls this on Harry. When Harry points out that said vampire promised that Maggie wouldn't be harmed, he replies that he only promised to do so until Harry's duel with Arianna was over. Now that it's over, he's free to harm her all he wants.
    • Even worse. He spoke through a translator. When the duel is over, the Red King speaks directly, claiming that he has not said one word to Harry!
• Subverted in Frank Herbert's Dune. Baron Harkonnen promised Dr. Yueh that if Yueh betrayed the Atreides, he would stop torturing Yueh's wife Wanna and allow Yueh to join her. After Yueh does so, the Baron has Yueh killed, as he had done earlier with Wanna, thus carrying out his promise to the letter. It turns out Yueh not only knew about the Baron's plan, he accepted it, and even managed to save Paul and Jessica and give Duke Leto a chance to kill the Baron — his death is a strange moment of triumph.
  Yueh stood, swaying. His lips moved with careful precision, and his voice came in oddly measured cadence: "You . . . think . . . you . . . de . . . feated . . . me. You . . . think . . . I . . . did . . . not . . . know . . . what . . . I . . . bought . . . for . . . my . . . Wanna."
• In The Encyclopedists, the scientists ruling Terminus respond to threats from the neighboring kingdom of Anaceon by reminding them of likely intervention by the Galactic Empire as assured by the official representative, Lord Dorwin. Then the Mayor of Terminus, Salvor Hardin, presents them with a summary of all the Lord's statements without the meaningless and off-topic talk. Turns out it amounts to literally not a word.
• In the Erast Fandorin novel The State Councellor, the Big Bad gives a Breaking Speech to Fandorin and then offers a choice: fight him, join him, or just keep silent. Fandorin choose to keep silent. Where is the catch? Fandorin holds information that could save the Big Bad's life.
• Forest Kingdom: In the Hawk & Fisher spinoff series' book 1, all the murder suspects attest under a truth spell that, no, they didn't kill the two victims. This is correct, because the victims were killed by different suspects.
• In The Giver, the language of the Community is full of doublespeak and euphemisms — although what that means in a community that literally has no way of knowing it is left as an exercise for the reader.
• In the Robert A. Heinlein novel Glory Road, it is mentioned that Star never lies. However, it is also mentioned that she's an expert in telling the truth in a way that you are led to believe something else.
  • In another Heinlein novel, Between Planets, the main character is told by one of the villains that his friend died of heart failure. He later realizes that all forms of death involve one's heart failing at some point.
• In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry reluctantly comes up with a plan to get Griphook the Goblin to assist them in finding one of the Horcruxes. As Griphook will accept payment only in the form of the Sword of Godric Gryffindor (which they still rather need), he promises he will be given the sword, without specifying exactly when he would give it to him. The Goblin, however, isn't stupid, and this plan backfires spectacularly for Harry. Despite the fact that Harry did fully intend to give Griphook the sword… just as soon as he was finished using it.
• The High Crusade has a late medieval English monk swear in Mohammed's name that his liege is telling the truth.
• John Dickson Carr does this in his mystery novel The Nine Wrong Answers in the form of footnotes that can be misleading at best, and a razor thin edge from outright lies at worst.
• In Pact, Maggie Holt cuts a deal with an exiled faerie, Padraic, a ring that contains great power in exchange for an item from her backpack. He repeatedly assures her that he means Maggie no harm, and as they both Cannot Tell a Lie, she considers this sufficient protection to go through with it. The item he takes? Her name, on a test paper.
  The deal was that the ring would go to Maggie Holt. Maggie Holt is my name.
• In The Princess Bride, Prince Humperdinck obtains Westley's surrender only by swearing to Buttercup that he will not hurt him. The Prince immediately turns aside to explain that he will be a man of his word and let someone else torture Westley while he watches. In a mild subversion, the Prince ultimately does break his word after all; it's the prince who turns The Machine all the way up to 50 and mostly kills Westley.
  • Also subverted in that while Buttercup is fooled, Westley sees right through it:
    Westley: We are men of action. Lies do not become us.
• In the first novel of Redwall, Matthias negotiates a hostage crisis with Big Bad Cluny by saying that he (Matthias) will come down from the tower if Cluny releases the hostage. Cluny does, and Matthias does so; but, as he points out, he didn't say that he wouldn't first cut the rope holding the Abbey's huge bell in place and crush Cluny underneath it with enough force to split the bell in two.
• In Tales of MU, Professor Stone tells the class that, according to the vice-chancellor, a student who had attempted to steal a rather valuable dwarven sword would be "dealt with internally and then expelled." This is indeed true, as the student in question had polymorphed herself into a mouse and gotten eaten by a cat.
• In the Andrew Vachss Burke book Terminal, a case is recounted where an AIDS-positive Nigerian who wants to have sex with a virgin teen is assured that he will not die of his disease — because Burke and co. shoot him dead before he can get what he wants.
• In Dennis Wheatley's "They Used Dark Forces" the lead character, Secret Agent Gregory Sallust (temporarily a member of the British Army), buys a new dress uniform on the eve of D-Day to wear on leave. Wheatley advises the reader that it was a waste of money since he never went on leave again and the reader naturally assumes this is a foreshadowing telling us that Sallust is to die. In fact, he spends the rest of the war in Hitler's bunker, seeing the enemy reaction from the inside as the Russians advance on Berlin and the Allies sweep through Germany, finally persuading the Fuhrer to commit suicide, and does not get free until the end of the war which triggers his automatic discharge.
• In "Truth to Tell", one of the Black Widowers mysteries by Isaac Asimov, a man renowned for never telling a lie denies an allegation of theft by repeatedly claiming he did not take the cash or the securities from the safe. This lasts until Henry, the Black Widowers' waiter, asked him if he took the cash and the securities from the safe.
• In David Weber's War God series, Lady Leeana asks her mother for permission to go riding. Mother wants to make sure that Leeana is planning on taking her guards along, and Leeana assures her mother that she knows that she won't be able to go riding unless her bodyguard goes riding too. She's planning to run away from home, and she knows that unless she gets rid of her bodyguard by sending him out riding on a long errand, he'll try to stop her.
• In Simon Spurrier's Warhammer 40,000 Night Lords novel Lord of the Night, Sahaal recounts the story of his primarch to a loyal servant of the Emperor, concluding that "He is dead. He was betrayed by one who should have loved him." She is moved to tears. He had, after all, left out that the "one who should have loved him" was the Emperor.
• In Mike Lee's Warhammer Time Of Legends novel Nagash The Sorcerer, Nagash does a particularly devious one on Queen Neferem, promising never to hurt her son again. He's telling the truth, because he already killed him and absorbed his soul.
• The Aes Sedai order in Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series swear a mystical oath that they will "never speak a word that is not true". Unfortunately, most of them become — by necessity — masters of obfuscated speech and false reassurances. Ultimately, the oath that is meant to reassure the populace of the Aes Sedai's good intentions merely makes them distrustful of even the most straightforward statement. Everyone suspects that when an Aes Sedai speaks plainly, it means she's already figured out how to get around it.
  • People can also get false reassurance from Aes Sedai, as it is revealed that they can say something they believe to be true which is actually a load of bollocks. Thus people can occasionally say "I know such and such is true as that Aes Sedai said it" (if they aren't dismissive right off the bat) when the Aes Sedai may just be mistaken or an idiot (or both).
    • In yet another way to get false reassurance from an Aes Sedai: Aes Sedai who have sold their souls to the Big Bad have their previous oaths removed, so they can lie with impunity.
    • Finally, the Black Ajah swear new oaths, so there's another form of false reassurance, because the literal wording of the oath is that they'll never reveal their secrets until the hour of their death, so if you're good with poison...
• In World War Z, one of the interviewed characters, Breckinridge Scott, struck it rich by buying rights to a prototype rabies vaccine and distributing it in response to early outbreaks of "African Rabies". Which he knew all along wasn't actually rabies, but if the ignorant masses were clamoring for a rabies vaccine, then he might as well sell them one while he could.
• Inversion: In E. R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros, Lord Gro at one point says "Oaths bind not an ill man. Were I minded to do you ill, then lightestly would I swear any oath you might require, then lightestly in the next moment be forsworn." Then he proceeds to not betray the protagonist he says that to, and remain true until the end of the book, when he switches sides ineffectually in the last battle for no reason and gets pointlessly slaughtered.

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