Brutal Honesty

aka: Brutally Honest

"Bringin' you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts."

— Three Dog, Fallout 3

Since everybody in TV land spends all day desperately lying their way out of situations, one of the more reliable gags is to create a situation where you'd imagine the characters would lie and have them be perfectly honest and straightforward instead. Sometimes this can separate a polite person from an impolite person, since a brutally honest character may say exactly what's on their mind. A hallmark of the Caustic Critic, or of a child who doesn't really know how to mince words yet.

A common twist on this is when the characters are brutally honest, but then their honesty is not believed. Sometimes, this is deliberate.

Another common twist is for a character to promise brutal honesty before saying something kind.

A form of Bait-and-Switch. Often employed in "The Reason You Suck" Speech. A Blunt "Yes" typically is an expression of this. Armor-Piercing Response may use this. If a character is brutally honest about why they don't want to do something, they're Not Even Bothering with an Excuse. If the honest character is brutal in general, then the Jerkass Has a Point. If the character is just brutal regardless of honesty, they're most likely your garden-variety Jerkass.

Another variation has Charlie being perfectly sincere and asking "Have I ever lied to you?" Joe will then list every instance where Charlie has lied out of his proverbial butt, often citing many examples. Little wonder Joe doesn't believe him. It seems Charlie is quite an accomplished and imaginative fibber. Contrast Honesty Aesop.

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• Anime & Manga
• Fan Works
• Films — Live-Action
• Literature
• Live-Action TV
  • A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon)
• Video Games
• Western Animation

Other Examples

Advertising

• Big Bill Hell's, originally produced for a faux award show called The Ad Follies, runs on this trope.
  It's our belief that you're such a stupid motherfucker, you'll fall for this bullshit. Guaranteed!
• A GEICO TV commercial depicts Abraham Lincoln in this way: A woman looking in the mirror asks Abe if her dress makes her behind look big. Abe nervously spends a few beats before answering yes.
• Several Citi Double Card commercials show first dates with both sides being brutally honest and cheerful about it (he says he will send a vague and confusing text a few days after the date, and she replies that she'll wait a few more days before replying; both agree that they'll never see each other again). The commercial implies that a more honest world would be a better place.

Animation

• In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Joys of Seasons Episode 82, the goats set up a surprise trap for their archenemy Wolffy and Jonie flat out tells him there's a trap. Paddi teaches her to be less honest about the trap next time, and she does, only to feel guilty about it later — so much so that she goes to apologize to Wolffy and gets captured by him. When Weslie tries to sneak into Wolf Castle to save her, Jonie is asked by Wolffy upon noticing Weslie's presence to tell him truthfully what's going on, and Jonie warns Weslie to run away, leading to Paddi and Tibbie having to bring her out of the castle.

Comic Books

• After the events of AXIS Loki in Loki: Agent of Asgard developed an intense distaste for falsehoods (maybe as a side-effect of the inversion or the truth wave, or just growing sick and tired of them) but they literally confessed their greatest sin (they are a copy of past Loki, who killed and body snatched their Kid incarnation) without any prettifying or softening to their best friend Verity and more importantly Thor. Thor flipped and dragged Loki before Asgardian justice. In the same series Gram was a weaponized version of this trope. A sword that if you got stabbed by it made you face the truths you denied. It wasn't lethal, most of the time, but hurt like hell, and freed people from Demonic Possessions.
• In Chick Tracts, the protagonists do not shy away from telling others that they'll go to hell if they don't convert, or that the recently deceased unsaved (including good people or those close to the listener) have gone to hell.
  • In "The Slugger" (as well as "The Superstar"), the main character's gardener isn't shy about telling him that he thinks he's nothing without Christ in his life, earning him a rebuke. When the athlete finds out he's dying of cancer and asks his gardener if he's going to hell, the gardener says "Yes... but you don't have to," and recalls the time a "real friend" had the guts to tell him the same thing. The athlete accepts and bequeaths his fortune to his gardener.
  • Similarly, in "The Star," Daisy, a cleaning woman, tells Douglas Ford that she thinks his films are "dirty" and that she won't see them, that he's a sinner who's on his way to hell, and that Cardinal Rooney, who says otherwise, is just a sycophant after his money. Like in the previous case, the actor converts.
  • In "Somebody Goofed," an old man takes a similar approach when talking to a boy about an overdose victim, but this time, it turns out to not be the best idea. A man who turns out to be the Devil in disguise mocks his harsh stance and offers a more moderate alternative, thereby causing the boy to reject the old man's pitch.
  • In "Wounded Children," David, having struggled with his sexuality all his life, is bluntly told that while Jesus can save him and forgive his sins, he'll also have to give up on being gay.
  • A comic spoof has Jack Chick having died and coming face to face with God, who is not impressed with him.
    Jack: But, God! I've spent all my life kissing Your ass!
    God: If I had meant for you to kiss My ass, I would have given you lips (spreads arms all the way out) this big!
• Let's just say that Cleisthenis from Democracy doesn't hold his tongue back when it comes to Isagoras.
• The elves in ElfQuest practice this, in a rare positive example. It makes communication within the tribes very effective.
• The Powerpuff Girls: in the DC finale "Smart and Smarter," Blossom's insufferable smugness (after being promoted to school for smart children) rankles Bubbles and Buttercup, who let her know it. But it's Mojo Jojo's Shut Up, Kirk! speech that cheeses Blossom off enough for a fight.
• Supergirl: During a battle in the Red Daughter of Krypton arc, Supergirl tells a girl to run and hide. Since the girl hesitates because she refuses to abandon her mother's body, Supergirl's teammate points out that her mother is dead.
  Supergirl: You. Find someplace to hide.
  Girl: But my mom —
  Skallox: Your mother is dead! Now run for your life.
  Supergirl: You couldn't put that more gently?
  Skallox: Seriously, new girl? Gently?
• Superman: In Superman (1939) #176, Superman and Supergirl celebrate a Kryptonian holyday called the Day of Truth in where Kryptonians honor the memory of a hero by speaking nothing but the truth, no matter the cost. The thing is, both cousins may be incredibly, astonishingly, rudely blunt. Superman judges a baby contest and a mother asks what he thinks of her little darlings? He tells: "Frankly, this is the worst collection of misbehaved brats I've ever seen! And you tried to flatter me, dressing your babies like me, hoping I'd pick them as winners!" When Lois censures his bluntness he retorts he is not a hypocrite. Supergirl's fan club gives Kara a lunch and the girls ask how she liked the food? She tells: "Er... You meant well, kids But frankly, the salad tasted like moldy hay, and the chicken wasn't fried... It was burned!" When the poor girls cry, Supergirl protests: "But, girls... You asked for the truth... and you got it!"
• Lacking much in the way of emotional filters between his brain and his vocalizer, Whirl is Cyclonus' confidant in The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye precisely because he has no reason to sugarcoat anything, and will say uncomfortable things in people's face with zero thought for tact. Cyclonus both needs and respects this kind of honesty, and it's one of the things that leads to their eventual Odd Friendship.
• New X-Men: When questioned by Surge concerning what happened to her boyfriend David during a demonic attack on the X-Mansion, most of the team made evasive and inconsistent references to minor injuries. X-23 provided a detailed report on how the demon lord Belasco ripped his heart out through his chest and noted (presumably in an attempt at reassurance) that Elixir restored it before anoxia-induced brain damage could have set in. This is pretty much X-23 in general due to her difficulties with normal social interaction. It's not that she Cannot Tell a Lie, (her training and previous role as an assassin for hire certainly requires this ability) she just generally doesn't.

Comic Strips

• Calvin and Hobbes:
  • Calvin is caught by his visiting uncle while going through his luggage and responds to the incredulous resultant question with "[I'm] going through your luggage. What's it look like?"
  • Similarly, when his mother catches him pounding nails into the coffee table in the living room with a "What on earth are you doing?!", there's a Beat Panel before he says, "... Is this a trick question?"
• Dilbert: Happens all the time in Dilbert's workplace. As the Pointy-Haired Boss summarizes neatly:
  PHB: Honesty is the best policy unless it's being done to you.

Fairy Tales

• The Emperor's New Clothes: The kid who insists the Emperor is naked even when he's being shushed by others.
  "The Emperor has no clothes!"

Films — Animation

• In Alice in Wonderland, Alice takes some of the mushrooms she has on her to grow giant size. She then calls out the Queen of Hearts as "a fat, pompous, bad-tempered old tyrant". Unfortunately, as she says this, the effects of the mushrooms wear off prematurely, causing her to shrink back down to normal size. As this happens, her voice trails off as she realizes she's in big trouble hurt now.
  Queen of Hearts: [softly but dangerous] And, uh, what were you saying, my dear?
  Cheshire Cat: [sitting on the Queen's head] Why, she simply said that you were a fat, pompous, bad-tempered old tyrant! [cackles]
  [Alice becomes alarmed at the Cat echoing her words back to her]
  Queen of Hearts: OFF WITH HER HEAD!!!
• Mufasa in The Lion King (1994)is very frank about using Zazu, his Number Two, as a pouncing dummy for his son. Zazu delivers his pun-laden report, not suspecting a thing until later.
  Zazu: What's going on?
  Mufasa: [candidly] A pouncing lesson.
• Used in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. When Sam asks Flint if he can keep a secret, he immediately answers, "No."
• Kristofferson in Fantastic Mr. Fox has a tendency towards this.
  Ash: I can fight my own fights.
  [Beat]
  Kristofferson: ...No, you can't.
• Kristoff of Frozen has no problem telling the Princess of Arendelle that he doesn't trust her judgment because she became engaged to a guy on the first day they met and when he thinks she's going to fail.
• Goof Troop: In An Extremely Goofy Movie, Bobby hits on Beret Girl. She responds, "Whoa, easy, boy, you're fogging up my karma," and then follows that up with, "Your cool balances out... his fool" said to Max about Bobby. Bobby can only respond by dropping his jaw and then saying, "Okay, whatever." PJ and Beret Girl end up together.
• Migration: Mack gets a dose of this, courtesy of none other than Pam, when the latter is trying to make amends for his insensitive remark towards a band of pigeons, led by the rough-and-tumble Chump, in Central Park.
  "Hi there, I'm Pam. I'm sharing my life with him so I'm painfully aware of all the stupid things that come out of his mouth."
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls:
  • In Rainbow Rocks, Applejack's one solo lyric in "Shake Your Tail!":
    Applejack: Your ideas are so funny that they're criminal!
  • In Friendship Games, this is Sugarcoat's thing.
    Sugarcoat: That was a really bad speech. You should consider not speaking in public.
• Penguins of Madagascar:
  • Kowalski is prone to this.
    Private: Hello! Are you my family?
    Kowalski: You don't have a family, and we're all going to die. Sorry.
    Skipper: Kowalski!
    Kowalski: I thought we were being honest.
  • Even at the end of the movie:
    Private: So... how do I look?
    Kowalski: You're hideously disfigured, and will probably be hunted for sport.
    Skipper: Kowalski!
• Ratatouille: Horst just cuts to the chase on anything. From informing Skinner that Linguini's mother died or that he was hired as a garbage boy.
• At the end of Snoopy, Come Home, Snoopy, in what is presumably a bad mood (he keeps a neutral expression through the whole scene), types up a letter to each of the major characters, then hands the letters to them directly, stating what they owe Snoopy during the going-away party. Needless to say, this frustrates everyone as they had just celebrated his return—everyone except for Charlie Brown, who is both accustomed to Snoopy's antics and is the one person whom Snoopy considers to not owe anything (which puts Lucy, who chooses to stick around rather than walk away in anger, in an even worse mood). Snoopy expresses a milder case of brutal honesty in the movie too: He cheerfully dances to express his happiness at a "No Dogs Allowed" sign at the apartment where Lila, Snoopy's former owner, has been, and in Lila's face even though she had been waiting for years to see him again because that sign means Snoopy can return to Charlie Brown, which is what he actually wanted to do all along.
• In The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the Mario Bros.' dad states his honest opinion about their plumbing business - that he thinks it's not going to help them, a reaction that even Mario's uncles Tony and Arthur, who had been making fun of them earlier, thinks is going too far when Mario dejectedly goes to his room.
• In Turning Red, hearing her parents, Mei shoos out her friends, telling Miriam she also can't stay because Ming has made it clear that she doesn't like Miriam. This is apparently news to Miriam.
  Miriam: Wait, she doesn't?
• The little girl hippo in Zootopia has this to say to Judy Hopps after the latter gives the former's mother a parking ticket:
  Little girl hippo: My mommy says she wishes you were dead.

Music

• The singer in Kid Creole and the Coconuts' "Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy" is a believer in brutal honesty. Despite Annie asking "Break it to me gently now,/Don't forget I'm just a child", he insists that "I'm telling it to you straight,/So you don't have to hear it another way". "See, if I was in your blood,/Then you wouldn't be so ugly", however, is just needlessly cruel.
• Steve Albini is a walking example. If he doesn't like you, he'll tell you to your face, and spare no words. He's done this to people he worked with, like Nirvana, who he described as "R.E.M. with a fuzzbox"^note He later recanted this after he engineered their final album In Utero, having seen their creative process in person. or Pixies, who he compared to cows being led around on a leash. As for his own music, he named one of his albums Songs About Fucking, one of his bands was named Rapeman and every one of his songs has never sugarcoated or been subtle about their subject matter. For all his reputation, he saves most of his disdain for the music industry itself, particularly major labels and their exploitative practices, which he famously never employed during his engineering sessions (for instance, never demanding royalties).

Podcasts

• Seen and Not Heard: Bet's rabbi is forthright while advising her, even if it comes across as harsh.
  Bet: I just...don’t want everything to change.
  Rabbi: Sure. It did, though. So now what?
  Bet: Dang, Rabbi. That’s harsh.
  Rabbi: I’m not required to pat your head.

Tabletop Games

• In Nomine: Seraphim value the truth above all else, and do not even like to lie by omission. They also have a very low tolerance for deception, dishonesty or immorality in other beings, and tend to get snappish and irritable when others are less than perfectly honest. If a Seraph thinks that you're a deceitful, immoral ape, he will tell you, plainly and directly, that you're a deceitful, immoral ape. This combination of absolute truthfulness and intense moralism makes them excellent investigators, but lousy diplomats.
• Scion: This is essentially a virtue for the Aesir. The gods expect obedience from their children, but not a bunch of flattery, and are willing to put up with a surprising amount of lip if the scions get results.
• Warhammer:
  • With emphasis on brutal, Khornate Daemons are prone to this. To lie is the purview of Tzeentch and soft words are the purview of Slaanesh, and thus signs of weakness. His Daemons' words can thus be trusted, or at least taken with less salt compared to others'.
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • This is one of Rogal Dorn's most noticeable traits: he is very direct and Literal-Minded and doesn't seem to understand the concept of softening his words. This actually causes a lot of problems, since his lack of tact and social graces contributes to rifts between himself and others who could be allies if they didn't consider him such a Jerkass, particularly his brother Perturabo. There is a recorded incident that Rogal was asked by a third party if he could build a fortress so impregnable that Perturabo (who specialized in assaults) could not conquer it. Rogal replied that yes, he could do that. Perturabo took this as a personal insult, while Rogal was only stating his beliefs without any intended malice.
    • The first Chapter Master of the Flesh Tearers (a successor of the Blood Angels), Nassir Amit, has this as his prime character trait (outside of his potential Unstoppable Rage and brutal prowess that gave him the nickname which led to his chapter's name...). He freely spoke whenever he thought the virtually-walking-gods that were the Primarchs and the Emperor made a bad decision, noted the genetic flaws that would trouble the Blood Angels and their successors for centuries thereafter and believed trying to cover them up was a mistake and volunteered to turn himself over to the Space Wolves when he became the first example of the Blood Angels' genetic flaws direly manifesting and putting him in such madness that he killed some allied Space Wolves.
    • Vashtorr the Arkifane, a Greater Daemon of Chaos, has this as a core trait, and one that sets him apart from every other Daemon in the setting: he doesn't lie. He doesn't trick or manipulate. As he's essentially the Anthropomorphic Personification of Industrialized Evil, it's not in his nature; he's cold, logical, precise, and exact in everything he says, and every deal he makes will have its terms, though brutally unfair, layed out in clear and unambiguous words. The Daemonic weapons he offers are just so good many won't refuse them, even when they know the terms he demands.
  • Warhammer Fantasy: Amber Wizards detest subterfuge and dishonesty in any form, even the most innocuous, and are consequently notorious for being incredibly blunt and for delivering their views and opinions with no pretense at sugarcoating, tact, or diplomacy.

Theatre

• In Critic's Choice by Ira Levin, Caustic Critic Parker Ballantine is ultimately unable to restrain himself from giving his wife's new play the panning it "objectively" deserves.

Visual Novels

• Kyou from CLANNAD has no problems at all with telling Tomoya exactly what she thinks, in contrast to her more timid and soft-spoken twin sister. For example, when Tomoya asks whether she cares more about her bike's tires or his life, she replies 'Tires' almost before he can finish asking the question. On the other hand, Tomoya can be like this himself at times, so it's not a one-sided deal.
• The protagonist of Double Homework has a couple of opportunities for this. Tamara and Morgan appreciate it, but Johanna, not so much.
• Fate/stay night
  • Kiritsugu, upon meeting with a young and recently orphaned Shirou in the hospital after the Fuyuki city fire, offers him a choice- be adopted by someone he's never met before or go to an orphanage. While this doesn't seem like much of a choice, Shirou accepts Kiritsugu's offer to adopt him, and considers his time with Kiritsugu to be the happiest years of his life.
  • Rin Tohsaka has absolutely no qualms with chewing out Shirou when she thinks he did something stupid or bluntly telling him to stay out of a situation because there's nothing he can do. A good example occurs about halfway through her route; after Shirou loses Saber to Caster, Rin tells Shrou that, having lost Saber, he is no longer a Master and that there's no reason for him to fight in the Holy Grail War any longer. When Shirou says he can't just leave Saber to be someone's puppet, Rin responds by saying that there's nothing he can do to help her. Then again, this is Shirou we're talking about, so you can't really blame her for not sugarcoating her words at all.
• Katsuki from Every Day's Different does not mince words, particularly around her less than flattering initial opinion of the protagonist.
• Morgan Fischer from Heart of the Woods, has a tendency to be rather blunt, from often giving Blunt "Yes" answers to questions to telling Tara that she and her best friend Madison would make a terrible couple.
• Katawa Shoujo:
  • Hideaki is quite brutally honest, such as when he alludes to Akira putting her and Lilly's tickets through the wash.
  • Hideaki's father, Jigoro, is brutally honest with his words, coupled with extreme jerkassiness in them.
• Rin from Little Busters! also has this tendency, though here it's more to do with a naive lack of knowledge or care about social graces than because she doesn't care about the feelings of the other person. If she thinks something is weird or gross or bad, she'll say it without thinking, no matter how blunt it comes out. Mio, on the other hand, really is just that apathetic about other people. Or she does it because it's funny. It's hard to tell with her.
• At least when it comes to other guys, Ban from Spirit Hunter: NG doesn't mince his words or offer false sympathy when he's relaying bad news.
• Tsukihime: Despite being a prim and proper Ojou, Akiha Tohno's personality is such that if she doesn't like somebody, she can and will make it known, not even trying to hide her utter contempt for Arcueid and Ciel from the moment she meets them. Shiki, for his part, is exasperated by this trait of hers.

Web Animation

• Zooble from The Amazing Digital Circus would delve into this, not masking anything about the terrible situation that the residents are in:
  • When Pomni first entered the world and wonders if there’s any way to escape, they said that she can’t, that this is her new home, and her new body. This is to help Pomni get used to the world she entered, so she won’t get crazy and abstract from not having any escape from it.
  • After Kaufmo gets abstracted and thrown with other abstracted people, Zooble stated that she thought that Kinger would be next to be abstracted.
• Dreamscape: In 'Confronting the Dark', Melissa delivers harsh truths to everyone else after they defeat the dragons she summoned to prepare them for the fight against Melinda. Betty and Dylan in particular get hit with this hard.
• RWBY:
  • Qrow doesn't hold back on his opinions, which generally tend to be correct. He tears into Ironwood for bringing his army into Vale and going behind Ozpin's back which only incites fear in the population and draw in Grimm. He admonishes his nieces for thinking they are capable of defeating all crime in Vale. When Ozpin was telling Pyrrha why they need her help, Qrow is the one who flatly points out how bad the consequences for her would be if she chooses to accept.
  • In Lost, Mercury has a Jerkass Has a Point moment where he becomes the one to finally call out the fact that Emerald is deep in denial over the fact that Cinder is an abusive narcissist who doesn't care about her underlings. Emerald retaliates violently, refusing to believe anything Mercury says, despite it being one hundred percent the truth.

Webcomics

• In Between Failures, Reggie has approximately zero patience for Evrina's power play at the furry club meeting. And his counterattack is devastating.
• Bittersweet Candy Bowl: Paulo in 59 failed at tact. A few times. And Lucy thanked him a few times.
• Andy from Bomango. While he's Gogo's friend, he isn't afraid to call out her on her behavior or tell her that she needs to take a bath. Gogo is usually unaffected by this. But after Gogo says to Andy that she'll let him gawk at her as a birthday gift, he tells her that she isn't as good-looking as she thinks. She spends some time wondering why he'd say that, only to realize she's too big (read: muscular) and not thin enough.
• In The Dragon Doctors, after Sarin confesses her romantic interest in Mori in the wake of their respective Gender Benders, Mori invokes this trope to let her know that he's interested, too.
• Electric Wonderland did this on the first page of "Valentine's Day Massacre". After Trawn and NJ read a comic from Shroomy, Trawn tells Shroomy that it was a nice try, but not what she was looking for. NJ, who had already scolded Shroomy for not having a clever enough joke, adds, "Also, it wasn't a nice try!"
• In El Goonish Shive, Ellen calls Elliot out on his motives behind his failed relationship with Sarah.
  • And then there is the much more extreme example between Raven and Pandora, in the Sister 3 arc. Raven remarks soon afterwards that brutal honesty is the only real way to get her to listen to him, though he clearly feels guilty about what he said.
• Girls with Slingshots: Zach picks up Hazel from a visit to a nurse. He's teasing her about her injury — "What'd you do? Fall on a fencepost?" — when Hazel snaps and snarls, "I spent the whole weekend pleasuring myself because my boyfriend won't!"
• The Handbook of Heroes: Wizard while wearing a headband of brutal honesty.
  Wizard: However, I can say with certainty that fighter is a chaotic stupid oaf.
  Cleric? You are a litigious bore.
  And Thief, my dear? You are shockingly incompetent. Thank the gods you got a great ass.
• Vashiel of Misfile is actually incapable of lying, so gets some moments like this:
  Dr. Upton: Vashiel, tell me, how incompetent is your brother?
  Vashiel: Oh, very incompetent sir, most of the time!
• The Order of the Stick:
  • Elan lampshades this trope (while playing it straight) in "The War Council", where he tells Haley about Therkla.
  • Redcloak's honesty is brutal in the most literal sense possible near the end of "Loose Ends".
• Outsider: The Loroi cannot lie in their telepathy, which means they get used to never lying in any shape or form, whether in telepathy or spoken word. It's implied that their rich warrior history is caused primarily by absolutely none of them bothering with tact. They seem to have gotten better since meeting other races, and their Mizol caste functions in part as diplomats who at least understand and apply tact, but they still tend to be pretty blunt.
• Done in The Pain — When Will It End in a (NSFW) comic about the reinventing of the Democrats as "The Sex Party". Confronted with charges of sexual impropriety, the Sex Party candidate responds:
  Candidate: Yes. I fucked that woman eight ways to Sunday. I fucked her like I was Paul Bunyan and she was a flapjack the size of Lake Tahoe. I intend to fuck her again immediately after this press conference. Next question?
• Pixie and Brutus: In their first meeting, Brutus very quickly points out that Pixie is small, weak, and unable to protect herself. She doesn't get offended.
• Questionable Content:
  • Marten is offended when Steve tells Dora and him to pick up the other end of a couch. "What, you think I'm too wimpy?" Steve simply says, "Yes." Marten opens his mouth to object, but shuts up when he realises it's true.
  • Subverted at the YouTube party: while they're sitting outside in the wake of Marigold learning about Faye and Angus, Dora says that there's something she needs to admit "in the interest of being up-front".
    Dora: You're sure you wanna know?
    Marigold: Y-yes...
    Dora: You have the most amazing rack in that dress. It is seriously incredible.
• Used in Schlock Mercenary, and probably inspired a rule about air vents.
  Captain Tagon: Sergeant, what are you doing in the ventilation system?
  Schlock: Listening to you guys.
  Tagon: You can't just...
  Tagon: I mean...
  Kevyn: It's hard to find fault with someone so blunt.
• Lalli from Stand Still, Stay Silent has No Social Skills, which means that asking for his input in a conversation will result in this. For instance, if about to go on a dangerous exploration mission and asked what the overprotective older cousin he left back home must be doing, he'll answer "crying" without a second thought. This also means that when he does say something nice, he means it.
• Sweet Home (2017): One of the main reasons why Hyuk is disliked is that he doesn’t sugarcoat anything. He tells Hyun right off the bat that he is going to go on dangerous missions or be kicked out, doesn’t hesitate to refer to the kids as dead weight, and tells Hyun that he is going to be bait in their next mission. It almost serves as a deconstruction, since while honesty is usually a good thing in a leader, Hyuk is too honest and makes everyone hate him in the process. Later on, as a result of this honesty, the other flat survivors are more willing to believe the lies of the criminals who arrived on the bus.
• Tower of God, Episode 30:
  Hoh: This is the limit of my talent. I don't really get why I was placed in the Wave Controller position. Don't you agree, Mr. Laure?
  Laure: That's right.
  Bam: Oh no, I don't think so. You must be talented in—
  Laure: Nope.
• While Tina of Wapsi Square is usually extremely positive and has been known to, in the words of the other characters, "Blow sunshine up your ass," she considers it her duty to be brutally honest with those she considers friends.
• In Weak Hero, the reason that Donald trusts Chungil enough to enter into a business partnership is because Chungil's completely transparent about their relationship being strictly for-profit, and doesn't pretend that there's any actual friendship or goodwill between them.

Websites

• Cracked:
  • This is the premise behind the article "If Oscar Acceptance Speeches Told the Truth", parodying the Oscar acceptance speeches of Denzel Washington for Training Day, Angelina Jolie for Girl, Interrupted, Tom Hanks for Philadelphia, Jamie Foxx for Ray, Al Pacino for Scent of a Woman, and Ben Affleck and Matt Damon for Good Will Hunting. Denzel Washington laments the fact that he won an oscar for portraying a role that could be described as a black stereotype, Angelina Jolie thanks Nepotism for getting her this far in Hollywood, Tom Hanks feels the need to remind everyone that he is heterosexual after playing a gay character, Jamie Foxx thanks Ray Charles for dying just in time so it would create enough buzz for him to win the Oscar, Al Pacino accuses the Academy of overlooking his previous subdued performances and decides to go into Large Ham mode for the rest of his career, and Ben Affleck and Matt Damon reveal that they didn't actually write the script, and originally conceived of it as an action movie.^note Cracked is decidedly wrong on Good Will Hunting. Affleck and Damon did write the script almost entirely by themselves, although it was indeed conceived as more of a spy thriller before they changed it to a straightforward drama.
  • Here's what jewelry commercials would look like if they were honest: admitting that much of what they sell is ethically questionable and only expensive because they decided it should be,

Web Videos

• In Backstroke of the West, the very Engrish English to Chinese to English adaption of Revenge of the Sith, the D flat out tells Allah Gold, "The Presbyterian Church, like, enjoys you not."
• This skit from Brian and Maria goes into the depths of why MTV no longer plays music videos. The main reason given is the emergence of the Internet (and more specifically, iTunes, streaming, piracy and social media) removing the funding necessary to produce music videos, and providing an alternative method to promote new artists. The two other issues mentioned are the need to play current popular music (as opposed to 80s and 90s hits) and the fact that millennials asking the question are about to age out of the prime advertiser demographic (and the fact that the complaint that MTV does not air music videos is old enough to drive).
• Many Channel Awesome members won't pull any punches when it comes to their verdict on topics.
• CollegeHumor:
  • One video is an honest video for 4 Loko illustrating just how bad the side effects are.
  • The parody college commercials for the fictional Quendelton State University are honest advertisements for a "once-called-adequate college". There's one for the College itself, the Graduate school, and the Online school. The same actor makes an appearance at the end of every video and sums up the whole video in one line.
    Guy at College: If we were a good university, we wouldn't have a commercial.
    Guy at Graduate school: Because if we were good at life, we wouldn't need more school.
    Guy at the Online school: Because if we weren't a real college, we would have to do stuff.
• Echo Chamber: Dana is certainly not afraid to let Tom know how much he, his work, and his webshow all suck.
• The Funniest Minecraft Videos Ever: Keith^note (Wilbur's draconic form in the "Dragon Morph" video) is quick to lay out his true opinion of Tommy.
  Tommy: Why don't I have a girlfriend?
  Keith: It's probably because you're ugly and have an insufferable voice and attitude.
  (Beat)
  Tommy: ...No, it's not.
• Pretty much the whole concept of Honest Trailers. Though they do point out on occasion that being honest doesn't always mean Accentuate the Negative, subverting this trope in the process.
  Epic Voice Guy: The Last of Us. Experience the game critics tripped over themselves to shower with praise and was a near-unanimous choice for game-of-the-year, but... they were actually kind of right, the game is amazing! What? I got to be honest.
• Smosh: If The Internet Was Real — Yelp:
  Hot Date: ...So what do you think of my spaghetti?
  Anthony: The noodles are too hard, the mashed potatoes are too sweet, it smells like a horse's ass, the ambiance in here sucks, there's a pube in my food, and my nipples are hard! Three Stars.
• Stuart Ashen: "To be brutally honest with you..."

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