False Reassurances in Webcomics.
- In 8-Bit Theater:Fighter: Hey, guys. Do you think I'm dumb?
Thief: I can honestly say I do not think that you're dumb.- Red Mage reassures Thief that his precious treasure shall be "preserved", without expounding on his plan to freeze the universe containing the treasure (and nigh-unstoppable fire demoness) in never-melting ice. It's a basically correct statement.
- It then turned out to be another sense of "false" reassurance when White Mage shattered the bag of holding and its contents to have revenge on the demoness for killing Black Belt. In RM's defense, he was not aware of nor complicit in that action. Thief had a "Heroic" BSOD at the sight.
- Later, Black Mage sets Red Mage on fire, and tells him that he won't have to worry about it for long.Red Mage: Oh, so it'll stop itself?
Black Mage: Yeah... All fires do eventually. Heh.
- Red Mage reassures Thief that his precious treasure shall be "preserved", without expounding on his plan to freeze the universe containing the treasure (and nigh-unstoppable fire demoness) in never-melting ice. It's a basically correct statement.
- In DMFA, Voluntary Shapeshifting and impersonation are fun
!- When an ambassador to the island nation of Trik'na is nearly killed, the island's head of security admits to being sorry about what happened, attributing the attack to someone in her own organization. She'll deal with the problem personally, though...Lady Soulstealer: Do you need any help? I know a bit about security measures myself...
Mehlata: No thank you. I have everything in order.
Lady Soulstealer: Are you sure?
Mehlata: I'd bet your life on it.
Lady Soulstealer: You'd... HA! Good one! Now that's a funny joke!
- When an ambassador to the island nation of Trik'na is nearly killed, the island's head of security admits to being sorry about what happened
- In one strip of Dominic Deegan, Randy writes a song about Luna, and how she saved him from screwing up his life. It's bad — the title is "Nothing Touches Me Like Your Mouth". He shows it to Taz to get some outside opinion.Taz: There's nothing that can be misinterpreted as offensive.
- Subverted, because the fact that he didn't give Randy crap about the song was a tip-off about Taz's intentions, as Taz likes screwing with everyone and is a really Bad Liar.
- End Boss's World: Air Man assures Metal Man he's not as useless as a chocolate teapot, because Chocolate teapots are at least edible.
- Exterminatus Now:Schaefer: *sigh* You made the place explode, didn't you.
Virus: I can categorically say, no, we didn't make it explode.- Also:Eastwood: They aren't the Inquisition.
- Also:
- The ship computer in Freefall uses this trope, in reply to Sam's question about how it feels about going into piracy.
- Full Frontal Nerdity: "I promise you, I don't have a single table of critical failures like that."
- Girl Genius:
- For centuries, the Heterodynes were vile, bloodthirsty murderers and Mad Scientists who ravaged the land with their legion of Super Soldiers, until Bill and Barry redeemed the family name. A few centuries ago, there was a man known as "the Good Heterodyne." This is not because he was a good person, but because he was good at being a Heterodyne.
- Count Wolkerstorfer prefaces his plan to Leave No Survivors by telling his intended victims, "Don't worry, no one will even know I was here!"
- Homestuck has Aradia playing this to the hilt, before the Sgrub game gets started. She got Sollux to put it together from alien technology and told him that it was to save the world and make sure that everyone didn't die when the apocalypse hit. This was, technically, true: Aradia just never got around to mentioning, until it was far too late for Sollux to do anything, that the world she meant wasn't theirs — and that "make sure everyone doesn't die" isn't the same as "more than twelve survivors". He's not happy when he finds out; Aradia is okay with this.
- This Irregular Webcomic! strip shows false reassurance in action. The library mentioned was just destroyed by a series of traps.
- The Order of the Stick pulls this more than a few times:
- After the party abandons an attempt to escape from prison because they heard the guards coming to check on them, the highly Lawful character Durkon states that "the five of us never left our cells" — which is true, because Durkon refused to follow when his four fellow party members left. When questioned about the unlocked cell doors, he truthfully responds "'Twas a mechanical defect" — he counts "able to be picked by a rogue" as a mechanical defect, and given that she had only improvised tools and a +2 love bonus to do it with, it's not even that much of a stretch.
- Celia finds a suspicious magic-user while looking for someone who could resurrect Roy. She uses the skill "Sense Motive" to ensure that he was not lying when he said he would not transform Roy into an undead creature. He intends to turn him into a bone golem, which is not technically undead, in the same way ketchup is not technically a fruit.
- After Haley kills Crystal and returns with Crystal's knife, all she says to Celia is "Oh, she said I could have it" — which she did, but it had been intended as an insult rather than a genuine offer.
- And of course, the Oracle does this all the time because he's a Jackass Genie.
- In strip #581, Old Blind Pete tells Crystal that he hadn't seen Haley.Celia: She, uh... she does know you're blind, right?
Pete: Crystal never lets what she knows get in the way of the job, heh heh. - Pretty much all of the fiends' deal to Vaarsuvius is this. Note that the line below sounds very much like it's saying "We're not cheating you" without ever actually saying anything of the sort."We simply don't need to trick you if we can get what we want by playing it straight."
- When General Tarquin offered the use of a Magic Carpet to the Order to help get them to Girard's Gate, Elan initially objected on the grounds that it was likely to be of evil origins. Tarquin clarified that, while a friend of his did steal it, it had belonged to a wealthy man who owned others, and promised that said man only missed it for a few seconds. What Tarquin didn't mention is that the carpet was stolen from the man while he was still on it in the air, and so he only 'missed it' for the few seconds it took before he hit the ground.
- From Panthera:Reynder: Don't worry, the nausea will pass in a moment.
Taylor: Uh, that's good, I guess...
Reynder: It will be replaced by nearly unbearable agony. - Averted in Schlock Mercenary:Kevyn: Assuming, of course, that you're not just planning to throw themnote out of the airlock on a crazy whim.
Lota: Lota is not susceptible to crazy whims, commander.
Kevyn: Oh good. Now what about premeditated atrocities?- Inverted when Petey destroys the Qlaviql Tricameral Assembly, with an array of False Threats. Petey presumably expended a lot of processing power finding wording to imply that he was about to kill the entire Assembly with an orbital plasma lance, without giving away that he intended to send them to Andromeda before actually firing it: "destroying the building and all who remain inside", using "removed from office" as what sounds like a Deadly Euphemism but is in fact literally true, etc.
- Sluggy Freelance: A mole, a suicidally overconfident Super-Soldier hunting operation: "I hope you find her. Each and every one of you."
- There is a widely-distributed one-panel comic of a Mad Evilutionary Biologist rubbing his hands together in glee as he exclaims, "If I can create life in the laboratory, it will prove no intelligence is required!"
