The truth will set you free! But what if it won’t? What if the unvarnished truth is an impediment to a worthy goal? If a slight mistruth would inspire people to do the right thing, it might be wrong not to lie…
Or so some authors would have us believe.
The Cosmic Computer by H. Beam Piper (1963)
Conn Maxwell returns to backwater Poictesme in possession of a secret that will transform that underdeveloped planet. During his Terran university sojourn, Conn has uncovered one of the Federation’s1 most closely held secrets: the location of the supercomputer Merlin. Once Poictesme develops the means to reach Merlin, the nigh-godlike computer will guide Conn’s fellow cosmic bumpkins towards planetary prosperity.
All of which is a barefaced lie. Conn does not believe Merlin exists at all. However, the steps required to reach Merlin are the same steps needed to exploit the abundant military stores abandoned in Poictesme’s star system in the aftermath of a recent war. The Merlin lie is simply the means to entice Conn’s people to embrace prosperity.
I am embarrassed to admit that it took me decades to realize why Piper named his protagonist “Conn.”
The Next Continent by Issui Ogawa (2003)
Led by Eden Leisure Entertainment, a consortium undertakes a tremendous challenge: turning the chairman’s thirteen-year-old daughter Tae’s vision of a lavish wedding chapel on the Moon into reality. Among the many recruited for the cause is skilled auditor Reika Hozumi, who is key to convincing investors that the project is a sound one.
In fact, the project cannot possibly pencil out. While Tae’s claim that people will spend vast sums on lavish weddings is entirely correct, the case that this means a wedding chapel on the Moon can turn a profit is flimsy. It’s best for Reika’s peace of mind that she has no idea Tae’s ultimate goal is not the one publicized. Gullible Reika’s primary task is to provide the Lunar chapel project with a patina of plausibility.
In this case, therapy would have been much less expensive than the course of action that the characters chose. But they do get a very shiny wedding chapel out of it!
Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey (2019)
Ivy Gamble is visiting The Osborne Academy for Young Mages. It’s no surprise to find a Gamble at Osborne. After all, Ivy’s estranged sister Tabitha is a teacher there. It is perfectly reasonable to suppose that Ivy shares Tabitha’s knack for magic. She lets everyone there assume that this is the case.
In fact, Ivy is a mundane with a specific set of skills otherwise unknown at Osborne. She is a private investigator tasked by headmaster Torres with determining just how it was that Health and Wellness teacher Sylvia Caple was lethally bisected. Lies are just one tool in Ivy’s kit, albeit a tool of which Ivy is very fond.
One might conclude from this novel that schools are a dangerous place to learn magic. Gailey’s When We Were Magic (2020) features self-taught magic with equally lethal potential. In Gailey’s stories, it seems that magic, however learned, is inherently dangerous.
Usotoki Rhetoric, Volume 2 by Ritsu Miyako (2013)
Urabe Kanoko was born with a seemingly supernatural ability: Tell a lie in Urabe’s hearing and the young woman will infallibly sense falsehood. This gift made Urabe a pariah in her Showa-era hometown and forced her to find her fortune in distant Tsukumoya.
Eager to prove her worth to detective Iwai Soma, Urabe undertakes to solve the case of a missing spoon. She soon zeroes in on a suspect, one who possesses a spoon just like the missing one and whose claims regarding the spoon Urabe can tell are lies. As an embarrassed Urabe will soon learn, not all lies indicate guilt. Some lies serve a higher purpose.
It is not entirely true that Urabe was driven from her hometown because she is a living lie detector. The issue wasn’t that she could always tell when someone was lying; the problem was that as an innocent child she could not refrain from loudly announcing that someone near her had lied.
Hogfather by Terry Pratchett (1996)
The Auditors of Reality, being a particularly joyless lot, launch an audacious attack on the myths underlying the Discworld. Assassin Teatime is given the task of killing the Hogfather, the Discworld’s version of Father Christmas. Teatime is as cunning as he is merciless. If Death and Death’s granddaughter Susan Sto Helit cannot confound Teatime, reality itself will be imperiled.
Toward the end of the novel is an exchange between Death and Susan that earned Pratchett’s book the final position in this list.
“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need … fantasies to make life bearable.”
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
“They’re not the same at all!”
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—”
MY POINT EXACTLY.
* * *
Is Death correct or was this manifestation of a force of nature kidding itself because it is itself the beneficiary of the folk belief in a personified death? Can lies be justified? Why did I leave your favourite fictional example of a justifiable lie off this list?2 Have fun hashing it out in the comments.
