Basic Trope: Stuff that forces people to tell the truth.
- Straight: Ronald is accused of a crime. Before his trial, he's injected with a serum that renders him incapable of lying for the next hours.
- Exaggerated:
- The serum permanently renders Ronald incapable of saying anything he isn't 100% certain is true and not potentially misleading in any way whatsoever. It also forces him blurt out everything he knows whenever he's asked a question.
- The serum causes Ronald excruciating pain until he tells the truth, which he feels instant relief.
- Downplayed: The serum dulls Ronald's mind a little, which makes it a bit harder to lie convincingly.
- Justified: The serum is magical, explaining that it actually works well (unlike real-life attempts at truth serums).
- Inverted: The serum renders Ronald incapable of telling the truth (cue the Kangaroo Court getting him for perjury).
- Subverted:
- The court says it'll force a truth serum on Ronald if he does not confess. However, this turns out to be an empty threat intended to coerce him into confessing.
- Whoever made the truth serum screwed up. Ronald gets injected with a dud.
- The truth serum is a Placebo.
- Double Subverted:
- After Ronald unexpectedly calls their bluff, they halt the trial until they do find a truth serum.
- The idea that he's under a truth serum is enough for Ronald to feel compelled to tell the truth.
- Parodied:
- The serum turns out to be... vodka. Ronald spends the entire trial making inappropriate comments that leave no doubt about what he actually thinks of the judge and the prosecution.
- The first thing Ronald says is "I have no idea who Ronald is. My name is... uh... [sees a law book, the plaintiff's son and the judge's gavel] Lawson Gavel!". The rest of his lies are equally bad, but everyone still insists that the serum worked.
- The serum instantly forces Ronald to talk in a brutally honest fashion, and also gives him a desire to confess every single misdeed he has done since he was born. And considering how much of a crook Ronald is, oooohhh, boy, does he has a Long List to prattle.
- Zig Zagged: The court says it uses a truth serum, but some people remain capable of lying anyway. It's left ambiguous whether the "serum" is a placebo some people don't fall for, the serum works, but can be resisted if your willpower is strong enough, or the court sometimes uses a fake serum instead of the usual real one.
- Averted: There is no truth serum.
- Enforced: There is not enough time in the film/episode to go for an extensive interrogation sequence, censors will have a conniption if the agents use the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique and executives insist that Viewers Are Goldfish and psychological mind games would go over their head, so out comes good ol' 7R-U-7H.
- Lampshaded: "Don't even think about trying to pull something smart. This drug will leave you completely incapable of lying."
- Invoked:
- Exploited: After the trial ends, people make sure to ask Ronald personal questions before the effect of the serum wears off.
- Defied:
- The country bans the use of truth serums, citing human rights concerns.
- Ronald's mind is so well-disciplined that he successfully resists the truth serum.
- Someone secretly switches the truth serum for a harmless saline solution.
- Roland's boss made damned sure that Roland would not have any information to divulge, especially if he was injected with a truth serum.
- Roland made sure to inject himself with counter-serum agents before being captured, so when he is given the truth serum and he lies, his opponents assume he is being truthful.
- Discussed: "If only we had something that could force these scumbags to tell the truth..."
- Conversed: "How come truth serums on TV are also blurt-out-everything-you-know serums?"
- Implied: A lawyer slips Ronald a mysterious substance before his trial. He ends up confessing even though he originally intended to fight the charges.
- Deconstructed:
- A country legalizes the use of truth serum on suspected terrorists. Its use starts creeping into other areas. In the end, the state subjects all kinds of people to truth serum in order to weed out "undesirables".
- The truth serum works as well as its real-life counterpart. In other words, it makes people talk without guaranteeing that they're telling the truth. This leads to wrongful convictions.
- After taking the serum, people only say things that are extremely obvious, making it completely useless for interrogation.
- Since the truth serum is not magical in nature, people under the influence can only speak what they believe is the truth; even if the serum completely prevents lying or intentional omission, or even deliberately twisted half-truths, if they only have half of the story or are operating on a Self-Serving Memory, then there is a good chance that there will be contradictions.
- Reconstructed:
- Before the use of truth serum gets out of hand, the country bans its involuntary administration. However, plaintiffs/prosecutors who wish to prove they're telling the truth and defendants who wish to prove their innocence still have the option to testify under the influence of truth serum.
- The wrongful convictions are overturned, and the country eventually finds a truth serum that does live up to its name.
- Played For Laughs:
- It turns out that politicians don't seem to tolerate the serum very well...
- A country decides that injecting every involved party with truth serum before a trial is a good idea. They give up after the serum ends up killing half of their lawyers.
- The judge stops caring about the case and starts asking embarrassing questions about Ronald's private life.
- Someone slips their local Sleazy Politicians truth serum shortly before a debate. Cue an endless stream of "no comment" from all involved parties.
- The truth serum works on the chemical mechanism as LSD
, so Roland not only reveals the truth he is asked, he also undergoes a severe case of Mushroom Samba.
- Played For Drama:
- Ronald is a member of La Résistance. The Empire captures him and forcibly injects him with a truth serum to compel him to give up the location of his allies, who are tortured and killed afterwards. He suffers significant emotional trauma from both the serum's hostile mind control and the horrific consequences of his inability to withhold the information.
- The truth serum works on a similar way as LSD, so Roland not only reveals the truth as he is asked, he also undergoes a bad case of Chemically-Induced Insanity.
- Played For Horror:
- In a Dystopia, truth serums are used to help the government weed out dissidents and other "undesirables".
- The truth serum works on the principle of causing extreme agony in the person that was injected. Ronald can either tell the Empire everything they wish to know or he will live the next three days screaming his lungs out... if his mind or heart actually can withstand that long.
- Ronald's physiology reacts extremely badly to some element within the serum. It kills him, and causes severe Body Horror as it happens. Ironically, Ronald do tells the Empire what they want to know, but it's in a "I told you everything I know, now please save me!" kind of way.
- One of the side effects of the truth serum is ego death. The agents who use the serum are perfectly okay with using it as a (non-fatal but still brutal) type of execution.
Back to Truth Serums.
