Discussion Main / HesitationEqualsDishonesty

This trope has two subcases: the audience already knows that the character is lying (dramatic irony ensues if the interrogating character believes the lie), or else the audience is as much in the dark as the in-story interrogator. In the first case, the hesitation builds tension, in the second, the hesitation is much more of a tip-off that the liar is being shifty.

It is interesting that the audience rooting for or against the liar will broadly coincide with case 1 and 2.

I think this was lampshaded in the Family Guy Star Wars parody Stewie: So no weaknesses at all? Guy: N-no sir Stewie: You uh, you hesitated there, is there something I should know?

Somebody tell me what I'm doing wrong here:

• Fallout 3 takes a ...different... approach, marking the PC's Blatant Lies with the subtle tag <Lie> at the end. Surprisingly few of these <Lies> are Speech skill checks, many are simply accepted at face value by the NP Cs, often to [[Narm heartbreaking effect]].

"heartbreaking effect" is supposed to pothole to Narm, but despite using the exact same syntax as the previous line, it just won't work.