Ill Never Be That Girl Again Never Again Have to Play Pretend

There are times when an say-so figure has to be flexible just still maintain their say-so. In these times, many use the following tactic to make clear that they have noticed an activity by commenting on how they oasis't noticed it. This mode, they're able to draw attention to the fact that the activeness is prohibited while nevertheless allowing it to happen.

This is not willful ignorance; the authority figure is making information technology known that they are enlightened of the situation just for some reason experience that drawing further attention to it might be a problem. This usually carries one of two messages:

1. : "I don't want yous to exist doing that, simply I'll give you 1 warning." Example:

   Sergeant: Go home, Private, earlier I have to notice you being drunkard and disorderly.

2. : "I wanna turn a blind middle, but I also wanna warn you non to mention it again considering the side by side person who overhears might not be equally sympathetic." Instance:

   Sergeant: It's a skilful thing I can't see y'all doing that graffiti, Individual, or I'd accept to written report you to the C.O.

Related to Could Say It, Only.... See likewise Fake Static, Suspiciously Specific Denial, Stepping Out for a Quick Cup of Java and You Didn't See That. Also compare with Selective Obliviousness, where a character may pretend not to hear or notice something because they only don't want to or know they can't deal with information technology.

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Examples:

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    Anime & Manga

• Bleach: After overhea... sorry, Non overhearing a conversation between Iba and Ikkaku regarding Ikkaku's surreptitious bankai,

  Captain Komamura: Rest easy. Unfortunately, my ears are not working well today.

• Jaco the Galactic Patrolman in Dragon Brawl Z: Resurrection 'F'. His job is two things: preventing the Saiyans from reaching Earth and preventing time travel. He failed utterly in both and only writes information technology off by saying he never saw it. This is as good since all of the "offenders" are much more powerful than he is.
• One Piece: "I don't hear anything." For context, the Straw Hats learn that Usopp wants to rejoin their crew afterward previously quitting, and a few of them plan to become find him and patch things upwards. Zoro, however, insists that Luffy tin't simply let Usopp rejoin without the latter outset apologizing, since information technology would be allowing a crew fellow member to boldness him; if the first thing Usopp says when he returns is an amends, that's fine, but if not, they need to leave without him, to which Luffy agrees. When Usopp does come back while the coiffure is trying to escape from the Marines, the first several things he says are decidedly not apologies, instead trying to sidestep doing so and challenge that him quitting the crew was a joke with his usual swagger. Each time, Zoro and Luffy pull this when the others indicate out Usopp's presence by challenge "I can't hear anything", and somewhen the residuum of the crew follows suit. It'south briefly subverted when, afterward giving him multiple chances, he notwithstanding hasn't said he's lamentable, and they start to escape without him; all the same, it's then double subverted when Usopp, upon seeing this, breaks downward in tears, apologizes for being stubborn, and begs to be allowed to rejoin, at which signal Luffy gladly lets him back in anyway.

    Comic Books

• At the end of Batman: Year One, Gordon realizes that the homo who just saved his son must be the aforementioned Batman who the Gotham Police have been hunting. Given that he's standing close enough to hand Gordon his son, and Gordon had previously met Bruce Wayne, the implication is clear.

  Gordon: You lot must be wearing some armor under that jacket.
  Bruce Wayne: Yes.
  Gordon: Yous know, I'thousand practically blind without my glasses. Sirens coming. You'd ameliorate go.

• Heavily implied in Identity Crisis to be the mode Superman and Batman (tacitly) handle knowing Batman was mind-wiped past the League. Equally some of the veteran members put it, Superman hears what he wants to hear (said with Superman in the groundwork of the panel) and Batman'south just too good a detective to non piece of work things out.
• In the Scooby-Doo story "The Phantom Of Youth" (Marvel, 1978), a millionaire hires Scooby and the gang to assist him find the Fountain of Youth. The gang all of a sudden changes their course when Scooby disappears. When the millionaire tells them to forget Scooby, Fred tells him "I'1000 going to pretend you didn't say that."
• In Top 10, when Irma Geddon and Joe Pi go to abort Atoman, she makes a devil-may-care remark virtually how Atoman'south long lifespan volition mean a prison sentence would just be a slap on the wrist, and that he deserves something a lot worse. (Bear in heed they have damning bear witness that he'due south a pedophile and an accomplice to murder.) Joe laments that he's "accidentally" destroyed his inbuilt audio taping system with his "typical motorcar clumsiness", and so he wouldn't have whatsoever evidence if a fellow police officeholder were to, hypothetically, propose doing annihilation illegal. He then tricks Atoman into committing suicide.

    Fan Works

• In Ancestor , Keitaro is trying to convince Kanako that she all the same needs more grooming under Hina earlier he can train her, thus she can't come live with him at the Hinata Inn.

  Kanako: What if I gave upwards learning our mode?
  Keitaro: (of a sudden very serious) I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that Kana-chan. Because if I did hear that, I definitely wouldn't let you come live at the Hinata-Sou. We exercise not allow students of our way to quit halfway through their grooming. Practise you lot know why? Because they are too dangerous. A educatee at your level has skills that are deadly but not the self-control to apply them correctly. If we did allow them the expiry toll would be unacceptable.

• The protagonist in Food Scandal is nearly killed when the homo she's questioning realizes he only incriminated himself in poisoning millions of Stormtroopers and is but saved by her torso armor. During her debrief, Darth Vader deliberately pretends she permit the assail happen to solidify the case every bit opposed to but forgetting to accept the area searched for weapons.
• This Bites!:
  • When first informed by Smoker, Tashigi, and Hina of their planned insurrection confronting the corrupt government, T-Os starts walking out of the room, loudly talking to himself most coming together Smoker for the first time the next day.
  • On the eve of the Marineford state of war, Commander in Chief Kong tries to talk Sengoku out of his awaiting retirement past invoking the retention of Sengoku'due south dead son. He's promptly knocked out by Sengoku's haki, and when he regains consciousness Sengoku very calmly asks if he was saying something; Kong takes the hint and changes the discipline.
• Lampshaded in Old Soldiers Never Die when Harry's Sergeant Stone tells him that "a good officer needs to know when to go for a walk, and a expert sergeant needs to know when to take a prisoner behind the rocks."
• In Brought Together, a rookie cop spots Batman on the security cameras breaking into the evidence room but is stopped from calling it in by his sergeant who tells him that if Batman is stealing something, he'south going to be saving a lot of lives by doing so, and he should just ignore information technology. Unfortunately, Batman's been mind controlled by Poison Ivy and is stealing some plants for her.
• In For Dearest of Magic, Amelia Basic makes it clear to Harry that she knows he'south backside the contempo disappearances of exonerated Expiry Eaters but isn't too interested in actually investigating then long as only Expiry Eaters disappear.
• In My Petty Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic Little Deceptions, Master of Disguise Blank Slate has made it all the fashion to the vault and is pretending to stand guard outside, dressed in guard armor. Everything has gone according to plan, until Princess Celestia shows upward, sits down next to him, and calls him by his real proper noun.

  "Skillful evening, Cuckoo Cloud. I'm glad to run into we have an extra-vigilant guard on duty here this evening. It's an important position, protecting the treasures of our nation. Peculiarly these days…" She sighed quietly, looking away, the shining afternoon clouding over. "I'm sure you've heard that in that location take been many unfortunate thefts lately throughout the metropolis. "It's… very unfortunate. Equestria is a wonderful nation, merely despite my best efforts, in that location are all the same some ponies that need to turn to crime to survive. We exercise our best to help them whenever possible. Only there'due south nothing that disappoints me more than than knowing that there are ponies who plough to criminal offence without truly needing to… pain other ponies without real reason. It's something I've always found hard to understand. And if there was annihilation I could practise to discourage it further, I would. But I want you to remember – no pony is beyond redemption. There'due south always another take chances, always a amend way to employ their talents. Do you lot agree?"

  All he could do was nod his caput, the bodily message too huge to truly have in. She's… not going to…?

  And she gave him another smile, the sunlight breaking through the embrace one time over again as she gazed downward at him proudly, warming him down to the tips of his hooves. "I'm glad. Proficient luck, Cuckoo Cloud." She stood. "Simply I don't think you'll need it. I don't think there will be any problems at the vault with somepony like you continuing baby-sit, volition there?"

  • He spends the rest of the night guarding the vault before turning himself in the next morning. This is played for laughs in the epilogue, when it is revealed that Princess Celestia had no idea that he was the thief, that she only knew his proper noun because of a Namedar spell she had (because addressing her piffling ponies by their names always made them experience special and important), and she tin can't even remember his proper noun without the spell.
• Lampshaded in A Yr Too Presently when a prefect warns Harry not to become carried abroad when he "has a word" with Draco considering said prefect doesn't want to "Inform Lord Malfoy why [he] was looking the other why while his 'honey son' was cursed."
• Luffy tries to go Franky to join his crew in To Protect Everything past pointing out that he'd exist required past Marine lawmaking to inspect the materials his ship is fabricated out of. If he plant out it was illegally made out of Adam woods, Luffy would exist forced to scrap the ship and abort the one who congenital it. Merely if said shipwright was a crewmate, Luffy could just take him at his word that the ship doesn't contain any illegal materials.

    Films — Alive-Activity

• In The Guilty, Asger calls Bo and tells him to ship a dispatch to Michael's home to look for clues equally to where he's taking Iben. Bo asks whether anybody is at domicile, to which Asger replies that he doesn't know, only that they'll take to interruption in if nobody is. Bo says he didn't hear what Asger said. Asger repeats himself simply to get the same respond before he catches on.
• In Lock, Stock & Ii Smoking Barrels, Big Chris demands that JD sign over his pub to settle his son'due south gambling debt:

  JD: I exercise know your reputation. And then I cull my words very advisedly. You lot tell Harry... to get fuck himself.
  Big Chris: Now, I'll put that down to shock. Only once.

• Inverted in The Man from U.N.C.Fifty.E. (2015). The CIA spymaster says he knows Boxed Crook Napoleon Solo is making coin on the side, "but practise not make the calamitous error of mistaking my deliberate brusk-sightedness, for blindness."
• When Grand climbs on top of the Apollo 11 rocket in Men in Black 3, this commutation takes place amidst the crew.

  Buzz Aldrin: If we report this, they'll scrub the launch.
  Neil Armstrong: I didn't see anything.

• In the showtime Starship Troopers motion picture Rico resigns from the military (which precludes ever being allowed to re-enlist. The same day, his hometown is destroyed in an alien attack, so he begs to be immune to fight for revenge.
• Inverted in Terminator Conservancy: when John Connor gets in an argument with General Ashdown over the radio, the general orders John relieved of his position, then signs off. Ii of John's men who overheard the argument immediately say that they didn't grab the general'due south last order, indicating that they'll help with John's plan.
• Bend It Like Beckham: Jess lies to her parents about staying with a cousin so she can sneak off and join her football team on a trip to Germany. When she explains how she got abroad to her double-decker he replies that he didn't hear that and lets her on the bus.

    Literature

• Harry Potter:
  • Dumbledore does this in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, although in this example, Harry had already apologized for mouthing off against Rita Skeeter: "I take gone temporarily deaf and haven't any idea what you said."
  • Another more dramatic example from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when the trio arrives to Hogwarts, Neville recounts them what's been going on in the schoolhouse, under the Carrows' rule. He told them that the teachers were supposed to send all misbehaving students direct to the two sadists for detention, but they don't send anyone, considering they desire to protect the rule-breakers from their Disproportionate Retribution.
• Near the end of Holes, as Stanley and Zero are existence driven home from Camp Green Lake, Zippo openly admits that he committed the theft Stanley was wrongly arrested for. The driver of the car (Stanley's attorney) turns in her seat and tells him: "I didn't hear that. And I suggest you to brand sure I don't hear it again."
• Discworld:
  • In Monstrous Regiment, Sergeant Jackrum says to a sentry who has left her post, "I must have bleeding good eyesight considering I know for a fact you are on sentinel duty over by those trees."
  • In Jingo, Lord Rust doesn't have to pretend he didn't hear Commander Vimes call him an "inbred streak of piss", because Rust is so convinced that anyone beneath his station would never blatantly insult him that he literally DOESN'T hear Vimes.
  • Vimes has been on the other ends of it, also, such as during the events of Thud!, when a fight well-nigh breaks out between dwarfish and troll members of the Lookout man over growing racial tensions. To save face for those involved, Corporal Nobbs tells an about-plausible tale. ^Specifically That one of the dwarfs almost picked up a troll beverage, and everyone got defenseless upwards in trying to terminate him from drinking it, to avoid injury. Troll drinks tend to be miniature pools of molten chemicals, and so "avoiding injury" is what makes it nigh plausible... just not the "accidentally picking up a troll'due south loving cup" part. Vimes "pretended he believed it, and they pretended to believe he believed it."
  • Past Snuff, Sybil has insisted Vimes requite upward cigars, and Willikins usually helps enforce this dominion. All the same, under specific circumstances:

    Vimes: You may recollect y'all see me lighting a cigar, Willikins, only on this occasion, I think, you lot eyes may turn out to be at fault, do y'all empathize?
    Willikins: Yes, and in fact I am deaf as well, commander.

  • In The Truth Harry King can't sell the Ankh-Morpork Times whatsoever paper since he'due south already agreed to sell his stock to their competitor. He can, still, exit a cart full of paper unguarded and pretend he doesn't notice them stealing it.
  • In Raising Steam, Angua, investigating a terrorist attack on a clacks site, pretends not to find evidence that one of the terrorists was killed and mutilated by a conveniently missing goblin worker.
• Robert A. Heinlein liked to apply this one; as a naval officer, he'd probably been on both sides of information technology.
  • In Space Cadet, when Tex Jarman gets drunk in public, one of the cadet's instructors (who is sitting nearby) calls over Matt Dodson and warns him, "Become back and tell Jarman to quiet downwardly before I take to come over and ask him what his name is."
  • In The Number of the Brute, the protagonists ask the Governor of the Great britain colony on Mars how they can exchange their gold for the local currency. He offhandedly mentions how he is glad to hear they don't have any gilded, beingness it is illegal there for individuals to own gold.
  • Starship Troopers has a strange variation. During basic grooming, a recruit strikes a drill instructor. The instructor punishes him on a bottom charge, and the recruit demands a hearing anyway, which the instructor and the base commander strongly propose confronting. He proceeds anyway, and gives a full business relationship of what he did. Once this is on the record, the base of operations commander has no choice but to court-martial him and have him flogged. This is actually a light sentence, equally assaulting a superior officer is ordinarily a hanging offense.
• In Betsy Byars'due south volume The Pinballs, two of the child protagonists, Carlie and T.J., smuggle a puppy into the hospital to cheer upwards their friend Harvey. A nurse catches them doing this, but seeing that Harvey is genuinely feeling better thanks to the puppy, she tells them something forth the lines of, "Now, you be careful with that puppy. Why, if I had seen it, I'd have to take it out of the room this very minute." Carlie is so impressed with the nurse's mental attitude that she declares afterward on that if she becomes a nurse, she'll act in the same way the nurse did.
• Aubrey-Maturin: Jack Aubrey does this on several occasions, usually when Stephen or Killick is muttering something that it wouldn't do for the Captain to take notice of.
• David Sedaris writes that when his mother was dying of cancer, he tried to end a phone conversation with her by maxim, "I love you," and she responded, "I'll pretend I didn't hear that."
• In Jerry Pournelle's West of Honor, 1 of the lieutenants comes across a private painting graffiti on the orderly room wall. He simply points out how unfortunate information technology would exist if the Sergeant Major had been the 1 to catch him, and says that he expects to see the wall clean when he returns. He also lets pass without comment the individual'south explanation that "IHTFP" stands for "I Have Truly Found Paradise" (rather than "I Hate This Fucking Place").
• The Belisarius Series has a Running Gag with Valentinian; when the latter mumbles something, typically blasphemous near the situation Belisarius is leading them into, Belisarius (who knows exactly what is being mumbled), asks what was said and someone, typically Anastasius, will cheerfully repeat it out loud... but since it would be rebel for Valentinian to say something like that, it might take really been something else that sounds vaguely similar, even though it admittedly makes no sense.
• Star Trek Novel Poetry:
  • In Star Trek: Vanguard, Captain Desai (the station'due south JAG officer) responds to a mission request by Admiral Nogura with something alike to accusing him of trying to punt her off the station to avoid legal trouble. Nogura replies that, as a favor and for the sake of her Starfleet career, he's going to pretend he didn't hear her insubordinate remark.
  • Admiral Nechayev says information technology give-and-take for discussion in Terok Nor: Dawn of the Eagles, when Elias Vaughn explodes at her regarding the supposed peace with Cardassia, which he knows wasn't accepted in good faith by Cardassia. Instead, he insists that they both know it's only a means to give the Cardassians time to regroup.
• The officers in McAuslan, a great bargain. "Information technology is astonishing merely how ofttimes an officer's duty seems to consist of looking the other way, or maybe I was simply a bad officer."
• Played with in the X-Fly Series:

  Hobbie Klivian: Lieutenant Myn Donos. A skillful pilot, smart—
  Wes Janson: —smart, egotistical, self-centered, big-headed, detestable—you know, a typical Corellian.
  Wedge Antilles: As a fair, broad-minded officer, I should ignore that. Simply as a Corellian, of course, I'll manage some sort of revenge.

• Gaunt's Ghosts: A common element of Colonel-Commissar Gaunt's leadership, especially when information technology comes to bootleg liquor. In one noteworthy incident, he drops in on a celebration for the newly-minted Guard recruit Dalin Criid and asks bespeak-blank if anyone brought whatever sacra. When it turns out they (of form) did, he suggests doling it out to the revelers "before someone sees it".
• Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM, uses this on occasion, such as his total ignorance to rank-inappropriate fraternization every bit long as it doesn't crusade trouble, or his continued confusion as to how his aide Jurgen keeps finding things like meltas, extra carapace armor, the best rooms at the local barracks, amasec rations, etc. (A combination of creatively misfiling requisitions and piffling theft, mostly.) On the other manus, he finds it more than reliable to bring the miscreants in question up on charges, and then detect some bureaucratic pretext to drib the penalty. The end result is the same, of course, but he'south a much more visible part of the process this mode, which suits his purposes.
• Common in The Legend of Lord's day Knight. Since Lord's day is both the leader of the holy knights and supposed to be viewed as perfect in the eyes of the people, the other holy knights are oftentimes obligated to act as though they don't know he practiced illegal magic, conspired against the rex, or snuck an undead creature into their ranks.
• In RCN, Daniel Leary's manservant and surrogate father Hogg is given to various "ne'er-exercise-well" activities, but because of their friendship, Leary explicitly says in narration that he doesn't ask how Hogg has "acquired" what the mission needs, because if Hogg'south methods did come up to calorie-free Leary would probably have to fire his mentor and best friend.
• In the Relativity story "Payback", a fiddling girl is kidnapped past mobsters. Later on she is rescued by the superheroes, the constabulary master, Aaron Brooks, wants her taken into protective custody (so she can serve as a witness). The superhero, Dark Flame, knows that the mob would have no hesitation in killing a petty girl, and being protected by the police force wouldn't practise whatsoever good because too many cops are controlled past the mob. Her solution is to take the daughter herself, then she would essentially disappear.

  Brooks: How the hell am I gonna explain her just "disappearing"?
  Night Flame: Well, what if I disappeared?
  Brooks: (turns his back on her and takes several steps away) Y'all know, I can't just allow yous go like that. I hateful, what would they say downtown?

• In Carl Hiaasen'southward Striptease, this is Orly'due south response when Erin (on behalf of the other dancers) requests that the air-conditioning be turned up. Orly is pretending this is a Type one above, merely is really hoping to but ignore the asking until the issue is forgotten. When Erin and so writes down "72 or no dancing", he adds "I'll pretend I didn't see that."
• George MacDonald Fraser notes in the McAuslan stories that "Information technology is astonishing how much of a young officer's duties consist of looking the other way and pretending he hasn't noticed". His Author Avatar Lieutenant Dand mcNeill prefers to get out the subject area to his platoon sergeant (about of the fourth dimension) on the grounds that he'south improve at information technology.
• Journeying to Chaos: Eric says something sacrilegious well-nigh the Bladi clan within hearing range of the association's main; explicitly, how their target should be "cut him upwardly into cubes to make bladi-flavored ice tea". Considering Eric is currently experiencing With Swell Power Comes Corking Insanity, Basilard says he will ignore information technology.
• In The Summation scene of Murder on the Orient Express, Poirot gives Monsieur Bouc and Dr. Constantine 2 possible explanations on how Ratchett was murdered. The offset explanation — that the murderer was an outside party who snuck on board the train and disappeared afterwards — is initially rejected by Bouc and Constantine equally having likewise many holes in it, but after they hear the 2d (and truthful) explanation that everyone on the train murdered Ratchett to avenge the child he killed and the family unit he ruined, they hold with Poirot that the first explanation is definitely the right one, there'southward absolutely no need to mention the 2nd explanation to the police, and in that location may also be ane or ii details nearly Ratchett'southward dissection that need correcting.
• The Way of Kings: During a heated word Sadeas insults Renarin Kholin and calls him "useless". Dalinar Kholin calmly replies that he obviously didn't just hear his friend-turned-rival insult his son because if he had heard it and so he would be obliged to make Sadeas pay for information technology.

  Dalinar: Surely you would not say that, every bit such an insult would demand that I summon my Blade and seek your blood.

    Alive-Action TV

• Game of Thrones: Immediately after Robb takes charge of Winterfell, one of his bannermen gets drunk and attacks him. Rather than charge a valuable ally with treason, Robb puts the human being down easily and agrees to pretend that it wasn't an attack.

  Robb: "My lord male parent taught me it was death to bare steel confronting your liege lord... Doubtless, the Greatjon simply meant to cut my meat for me."

  • The entirety of Westeros' dignity is doing this with Renly Baratheon and Loras Tyrell's human relationship. Officially, homosexuality is very illegal in Westeros ^notation except in Dorne and ii men of their stature engaging in it is a huge criminal offence. Unofficially, the Tyrells are a very powerful family unit that can very easily change the balance of power in the kingdom, then everybody just looks the other way and pretends they never heard anything, often while making it abundantly clear how they actually feel virtually it. Joffrey makes a massive political faux pas when he publicly brings it up correct in front of the Tyrells in his typical cruel and tactless way.
• Madam Secretary: Jay is reporting to Bess on how stoning kills a person. He is so disgusted well-nigh an execution that the Iranians are going comport out, he yells that he wished the coup that the protagonists worked to prevent succeeded. Bess is manifestly aroused past his remarks, but given the nature of the topic, she tells Jay that only this once, she'll allow information technology slide.
• At least 2 instances on Battlestar Galactica (2003):
  • When Galactica has the opportunity to release a virus that volition wipe out all Cylons, Helo argues that it's effectively genocide, and they should try to brand peace with the Cylons instead. Given what the rest of the crew has been through, fifty-fifty making that suggestion doesn't become over well.

    Helo: They tried to live with us on New Caprica.
    Roslin: What did you say?
    Helo: They tried to alive with united states of america on New Caprica.
    Roslin: You weren't on New Caprica. To my recollection you never set human foot in that location? So out of respect for the hundreds of men and women of your coiffure who suffered through that snakepit... I'k gonna pretend I didn't hear that.

  • Afterwards they bring up the subject field of the Final Five Cylons (a taboo topic in Cylon culture) Cavil orders a number of his fellow Cylons to "have a cleansing walk" and he'll forget what he just heard them say.
• Subverted in an episode of Bones. Bones told Caroline Julian (the DA) something and Julian said "I didn't hear that," and so Bones started to echo herself louder.

  Caroline Julian: (dumbfounded) Exercise I have this right, you're a genius? An honest-to-goodness-dyed-in-the-wool genius?
  Bones: (hesitantly) Yes?

• Similarly in Just Fools and Horses: with the family under arrest, Del tries to bribe DI Slater to permit them go. The detective replies, "I didn't hear that, Del-Boy!" whereupon Del begins to echo the offering, more loudly, earlier Rodney cuts him off.
• In an episode of Police force & Order: Special Victims Unit, an attempt to detect a deceased man'due south lover at his funeral backfires when a fight breaks out betwixt mourners and protesters, and a number of people go out before they can be interviewed. This leads to the following exchange:

  Cragen: What did you get from the people at Reed'southward funeral?
  Fin: Not much. After the fight bankrupt out, a agglomeration of people left before we got their names.
  Munch: (holding upwards a photographic camera) Yeah, but we got their pictures.
  Cragen: Where the hell is that from?
  Munch: One of Reverend Shaw'due south church members, he must have left it behind.
  Casey: I didn't hear that.

  • In a afterwards episode, a friend of Carisi's who works every bit a prosecutor in Queens manages to become the Queens DA (who is suffering from a carefully covered-upward case of dementia) to sign off on vacating a wrongful confidence by challenge that the newspaper the DA was signing was a letter of recommendation for the friend'southward police force school application. When he tells Carisi this, Carisi replies, "I didn't hear that and y'all did not say that — simply thank you."
• In an episode of Ned'south Declassified Schoolhouse Survival Guide, a character starts an hush-hush reaction to the schoolhouse talent contest and one of the other characters asks the woodwork teacher for advice. His reply goes more or less "I, of grade, didn't hear you refer to an event that the principal has specifically prohibited."
• On That '70s Evidence, the main characters are talking well-nigh sex using thinly veiled metaphors, until Mrs. Foreman complains: "You're making it actually hard to pretend I don't know what you lot're talking about".
• Jim Keats, the season 3 Big Bad of Ashes to Ashes (2008) is hardly a Reasonable Authority Effigy - he'southward but posing equally one. He still breaks this one out every so frequently to maintain the facade that he isn't trying to bring down the entire department.
• Happens somewhat regularly on both NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles. Either the team needs something merely don't have the time to get approval or approval would tip off the perp or Gibbs/Vance/Hetty crave Plausible Deniability.
  • In one episode, a group of sailors are playing poker, with cash visible on the tabular array. Equally 1 asks the other, "What do you got?", DiNozzo walks in, declaring, "Near five seconds earlier the Amanuensis Afloat sees you playing for stakes.", prompting them to scramble away.
• On Hogan'south Heroes, Sergeant Schultz frequently says "I see nothing!" considering he knows that investigating would just make things worse for him.
• A recurring exchange in the kickoff season of The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer, whenever Mortimer tells a bad joke:

  Reeves: Oh you cheeky so-and-so.
  Mortimer: I'll pretend I didn't hear that.
  Reeves: I can't blame y'all. (or "I'll pretend y'all didn't")

• On ane episode of L.A. Constabulary, Abby is attacked in her law office by a disgruntled client; she pulls a gun out of her purse and shoots him. In the side by side episode, the distraught Abby is describing the scene to a police officer. When she says she took the gun from her purse, he firmly corrects her: "Desk drawer. ...You didn't have a highly illegal concealed weapon; you had a lawful gun in your desk for personal defence force."
• Zig-zagged: The Chiliad*A*S*H episode "Some 38th Parallels" has the docs irked past a Colonel who seems to be unfazed at the death of i of his men. Hawkeye and Klinger have a sack of rubbish (which Hawkeye bought at Frank's auction for the village folk) dropped from a helicopter on the Colonel as he boards his jeep. Potter says pleasingly "I didn't see any of it just I loved every minute of it!"
  • In a later episode, Klinger asks Potter to exercise this after he comments that he's "not crazy" in response to Winchester suggesting to Potter that Klinger drive him to the airport as a storm is bearing downward on them (significant Klinger would have to make the return trip through said storm). Potter apparently takes information technology to heart (or else legitimately forgets the remark in all the chaos), as the conversation is never mentioned again.
• Comes up frequently on White Neckband.

  Peter: Pencils down. No one heard that.

• In the Gotham episode "This Ball of Mud and Meanness", Alfred explains to Gordon and Bullock how Bruce insists on tracking down the man who killed his parents, and mentioned that he (i.e. Alfred) intended to kill the man himself to keep Bruce from getting claret on his easily.

  Bullock: We're the cops. Practice not tell united states stuff similar this.

• Maurice Levy of The Wire knows his way around this trope, which makes him such an effective and despicable defence chaser. For example, afterward a worrying gear up of arrests, he sits down with the kingpin and his Dragon to, in a nutshell, help them brainstorm a hit list. Once he gets them rolling, he removes himself from the conversation before anything actually illegal is mentioned.

  Levy: The less I hear of this the amend.

• ER. After Nurse Chuny lets it sideslip that Dr. Doug Ross immunized a child without the female parent's consent (he was brought in past the child's babysitter), his supervisor Dr. Mark Greene declares, "I didn't hear that."
  • Some other bit has Abby blithely admitting that she fraudulently used Carter'southward info to obtain her blood brother'south medical records. Carter is stunned, but given that he doesn't say anything or turn her in, he'south clearly invoking this trope.
  • Yet another has Sam telling her one-time employer that she shot her ex-married man—who had kidnapped her and their son, raped her, and shot and killed several people forth the mode, including his accomplices—while he was comatose on the basis, making her actions technically murder instead of self-defense. He looks her in the eye and declares, "I didn't hear that, and that's the final time you're going to say it."
• Law & Order: UK. Every bit the begetter of a murder suspect starts blurting out to Crown Prosecutor George Castle that he is the killer that the detectives are looking for, Castle screams at him to "Close up! I tin't hear this!", knowing that the guy is incriminating himself to someone who would be obligated to bear witness confronting him.
• Blake's 7. In "Killer", Blake teleports down to help a Federation base deal with a deadly virus. When he informs a couple of research technicians that he's the Federation's well-nigh wanted political criminal, they reply that they can hardly be expected to remember people'due south names.
• A retroactive case appears in Customs after Frankie, a Bait-and-Switch Tyrant, shows upwardly in Season 6 and begins threatening the main characters' command of the school. In defiance against her banning alcohol on campus, they end up building a speakeasy on the campus. While they think it's Hidden in Evidently Sight, however, Frankie reveals that she actually knew nearly information technology all along because building a 1920s bar in the middle of a community college isn't actually the kind of thing you lot tin can hide, but simply let them think she didn't because it was easier than putting up with their childish, articulatio genus-wiggle resistance to everything she was doing.
• GLOW (2017): When K-DTV exec Tom Grant sexually harasses Ruth and she refuses his advances, he retaliates by putting GLOW on a expressionless time slot at 2:00 am. When Ruth tells Sam virtually this, Sam finds Tom's car and shatters the windshield with a tire atomic number 26. On his way out, Sam sees Tom'southward underling Glen Klitnick staring at him.

  Sam Sylvia: Glen.

  Glen Klitnick: You know, Tom pisses off a lot of people. Could've been anyone.

• Silicon Valley: When the Pied Piper guys first talking about less-than-legal tactics, Monica states, "I wasn't in the room for that!" and leaves. In one especially drastic circumstance, she merely steps out onto the patio and continues contributing to the conversation through the screen door.
• Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. The title graphic symbol and her beau Sully human action as spies for the Native Americans, warning them of an impending attack by the troop currently in town. Afterward a battle in which most of the soldiers are killed, their leader asks Dr. Quinn how she came to be at the site. When she confesses that she came to warn the Native Americans, he very pointedly tells her, "No, you must have ridden out to visit a patient." When she affirms her statement, he arrests her for treason.
• Cold Case. In "Justice", the squad has adamant that a Serial Rapist was shot and killed by the blood brother of one of his victims. As two detectives interrogate him, they subtly propose that his actions were in cocky-defense force (every bit he was only thirteen at the time). Ii other detectives watching the interview enquire, "Is she doing what I remember?" "I'one thousand not hearing information technology, are y'all?", and promptly turn off the monitor and walk away.
  • A like incident (with the aforementioned two detective interestingly) occurs in "A Perfect Day", when one witness indirectly but conspicuously admits he killed his fiancee's abusive hubby who is ultimately revealed as the killer of the main victim, a trivial girl. Jeffries suggests there'due south no need to put that annotate on the record, to which Vera replies, "Don't remember what the man said anyhow."
• Frasier:
  • Niles is decumbent to using this reaction — either stated or unstated — in response to an unnecessary complication in an already convoluted circumstance or just something he'd rather non see.

    Bebe: (in a bathrobe, greeting Niles at the front door later having sex with Frasier) Skilful morning time, Niles! What a lovely surprise! Nosotros were just tour to sit down to a big family unit breakfast. Won't you join us?
    (Niles gives a very frozen smile, and rings the doorbell once again. )

  • Frasier himself does this when discussing Television set shows with Noel Shempsky:

    Frasier: Noel, Star Expedition is just a TV show.
    Noel: So was Brideshead Revisited!
    Frasier: [seething] You're angry, so I'm going to ignore that.

• The Barrier: Several of the characters stop up searching for Manuela in the Covarrubias business firm after she turns out to have defenseless noravirus. Among the scattering of people searching for her, at that place are a couple who intend to help her go to a place where her condition may be treated more humanely than if she'southward handed over to the arrangement in place to deal with noravirus patients. Rosa finds Manuela hiding in the garage moments before her allies do. When asked about her progress from another room, Rosa claims that the garage is empty, merely that she heard noise coming from another role of the house. She then leaves the garage all while giving Manuela'south allies a stern look.

    Video Games

• Inverted in Final Fantasy 10. Devout Yevonite Wakka questions the involvement of Maester Seymour Guado — essentially a high priest of Yevon — in an operation that uses machines forbidden by that religion; Seymour coolly suggests he just pretend he doesn't see them. When Wakka, shocked, protests that that's not something a Maester should say, Seymour replies, "Then pretend I didn't say it." This is 1 of many early clues that Seymour is Obviously Evil.
• In Mega Man Boxing Network three, Lan, expecting to find Mayl and Yai at his door (whom he had snapped at earlier and was ready with an amends), instead meets Chaud and assumes he'south at that place to arrest him for having planted burn down chips beyond the cyberspace which caused fires and even sent his male parent to the infirmary - even though he'd been duped by Mr. Match into doing and so - To which he cops out during their conversation. Chaud's visit was actually about asking Lan to fetch the Forbidden Program from the Undernet for the Officials, which was followed past the confession, and the trope comes in as a favor to Lan for helping become Chaud's male parent away from Sunayama at the TV studio.
• In Company of Heroes, a cutscene shows a sergeant chugging abroad on a bottle of French vino. An officer strolls up and says he'll "assume that's grape juice". The sergeant says every bit the officer walks away "Correct sir, grape juice! Well, it was...'bout a yr ago."
• Mass Result ii:
  • If you have Grunt in your party when you lot enter the quarantine zone on Omega, he'll ask if the smell of burning corpses makes anyone else hungry. If you likewise have Jacob, he'll drop the line.
  • This is Anderson and Hackett's response to Shepard teaming up with Cerberus in the second game. They don't know what you're upward to, at all, and oasis't spoken to you since you were reported dead, and nobody can prove otherwise. Hackett even specifically denies requests to have agents spy on Shepard to ensure this remains true. This is because both admirals have the highest confidence in Shepard and his/her methods, but they can't be seen publicly associating with someone who does things like espoused with known criminals, accept coiffure and materiel from avowed terrorist organizations, or destroy unabridged colonies.
• In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the Empire'south hope was to do this in regards to Talos worship in Skyrim, due to the White-Gold Concordat banning it. However, the Thalmor had other plans, manipulating the "asset" known as Ulfric Stormcloak into blatantly violating the concordat, giving the Thalmor justification to force heavier enforcement past the Empire and direct enforcement by the Thalmor. In the Empire ending for the Civil State of war, General Tullius does one on Legate Rikke as she says her final goodbye to her one-time comrade Ulfric's corpse, when she said "Talos guide yous".
• The World Ends with Y'all has a department where Neku and his partner Joshua are fighting a rhino Taboo Noise. When they can't seem to vanquish information technology, Joshua all of a sudden levitates and fires a laser at it, destroying it in ane shot, something mode more powerful than anything he did before. Unfortunately, they're seen by Kariya, who notes that what he just did shouldn't be possible for a Player — so Joshua's participating in the Reaper's Game while still being alive . He also says that by Reaper rules, he should erase them both correct now — just since what they did helped him out, he says he "blinked" and didn't see it. This time. After this cutscene, that assault is permanently unlocked, only the user holds back to stay nether the radar, and it's never that powerful in the player'southward hands.
• Happens twice in the same scene in Persona four. Your cousin Nanako has just been kidnapped after your Detective Uncle Dojima takes you in for questioning. After he recieves the news, he takes off leaving you and your friends with his partner Adachi. When the residuum of your friends come as well, Adachi says he really shouldn't let anybody to be in the Interrogation Room, just doesn't practice annihilation to stop information technology. A little while after, the team finally discovers the identity of the kidnapper and tell Adachi they demand to go after him, begging him to let you leave. He and then decides to leave the room.

  Adachi: I just have to promise goose egg happens here while I'm gone... I didn't see anything.

• The Legend of Zelda: Jiff of the Wild: a pocket-sized sidequest in Hateno Village introduces you lot to the Horned Statue, a dealer in money and ability who apparently earned Hylia's wrath sometime before the events of the game. He mostly serves as a ways to exchange Heart Containers for Stamina Vessels or vice versa ^* A player with 100% completion will be three brusque of maxed-out for one or the other, or two curt if they've completed the Champions' Carol DLC, in a roundabout fashion that makes use of this trope.

  Horned Statue: I'll requite y'all 100 rupees to take i of your Heart Containers or a Stamina Vessel off your easily. You can have one back for 120 rupees. And if it'south not the same one you gave me, why, I won't tell a soul.

    Webcomics

• In The Animate being Legion, that's what Fyre thinks when Xeus bluntly says she'due south hot!
• Kaspall: "SORRY? WHAT WAS THAT? I Announced TO HAVE GONE TEMPORARILY DEAF! GOD, I Hope NO Ane CONFESSED TO A SERIOUS OFFENCE WHEN I WASN'T LISTENING!"

  "What? I'll exist spending the adjacent four weeks filling out paperwork as information technology is.

• In Girl Genius, it's more of a "I'll Pretend I Didn't Come across That" when Violetta, a trained Fume Knight (spy/assassinator/bodyguard) whacks her cousin over the caput with a cosh and knocks him out, before he can kidnap her best friend/employer, even though information technology violates the rules of sanctuary of the monastery they're currently in.

  Monk: Oh! My goodness, Father Abbot, he just fell over!
  Abbot: Why, it was as though an invisible paw struck him down, Blood brother!
  Monk: Possibly it was one of those legendary Fume Knights!
  Abbot: Ah! How mysterious!
  Violetta: Yes. We become that a lot.

    Spider web Original

• Not E'er Learning: During a schoolhouse field trip to Auschwitz, two students decided to take selfies with the watchtower as backdrop. ^note Considered highly disrespectful; and could have gotten them thrown off the site if they'd done it inside the buildings. The affiche took their telephone with i mitt, and slapped both of them with the other ... in front of a teacher.

  I saw nil. Simply allow'southward leave it at one 'zilch', shall we?

    Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender gives us the following... chat:

  Aang: I know y'all tin't really talk. Pretending you tin can but helps me think.
  Momo: [chitters]
  Aang: I'g going to pretend I didn't pretend to hear that.

• The Simpsons:
  • When Marge becomes a police officer, she offers to turn a blind middle to Homer ownership beer for teenagers as long every bit he moves his auto away from where he's parked it across three handicapped spaces. He doesn't, instead opting to take her chapeau and practice a mocking impersonation of her, so she arrests him anyway.
  • In "Itchy and Scratchy: The Film", Homer tries to console Bart after he forbids him from seeing the aforementioned pic.

    Homer: I'll let you watch anything on Television receiver.
    Bart: TV sucks.
    Homer: (agitated) I know you're mad correct at present, so I'll pretend yous didn't say that.

• In a Robot Chicken segment, Mickey Mouse questions the romance between Goofy and Clarabelle, to which Goofy replies there aren't a lot of dogs around for him to engagement. When Mickey recommends Pluto, who is licking his private parts, Goofy says this in response.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In "The Deserter", Captain Rex is badly injured, and is left by his men on a farm to recover. At evening he finds out that the married man of Suu, the woman who took him in, is a deserter clone called Cutting Lawquane. After he gets to know Cut and his family, and fights side-by-side with him, Suu asks him whether he's going to turn Cutting in for deserting the army. King answers that he has no choice in the matter, but and then reminds them that "in [his] condition", surely he won't be able call back the coming together.
• In Turbo, Whiplash does this twice.

  I'thou gonna pretend I didn't hear what I clearly only heard!

• Happens word-for-word in The Incredible Hulk (1996), when Bruce Imprint and Ben Grimm go into a heated debate:

  Bruce: You don't know how it feels to be a monster!
  (tense pause)
  Ben: (coldly) Medico, I'thou gonna pretend I didn't hear 'dat.

• In a Cyberchase episode involving symmetry, the opening scene featured the core trio bickering over whether it was Matt'south poorly planned cutting of the boards or Inez and Jackie'southward haphazard nailing that had wrecked the debate they were supposed to be fixing. After Inez comments on the slide symmetry of the argue piece she's holding, capping her spiel by glaring at Matt, whose dorsum is to her, and maxim "Dissimilar some fences we know." Matt'southward response is a flat "I will pretend I didn't hear that." Fabricated funnier by the fact that his reaction is still more mature than your average eleven-yr-old boy's would be.
• Danger Mouse: In "The Ultra Secret Secret", in which Baron Greenback wants to team upward with DM to stave off an alien assault, Penfold cracks a impaired joke, prompting Greenback to say "Penfold, shush!"
• In Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman, a criminal mook walks in on Batman as he's snooping around. They stare at each other for a long moment, and and so the mook (who is sporting a black eye from a previous confrontation with the Night Knight) just walks away and pretends he didn't see anything.
• The Venture Bros.: Sgt. Hatred is hysterical because his darling Princess Tinyfeet might be dumping him. He encounters the raspy-voiced supervillainess Dr. Girlfriend, and asks her stance on the thing.

  Hatred: You're a woman...I mean, you are a woman, right?

  Dr. Girlfriend [clearly annoyed]: I'yard gonna ignore that... ^notation For the tape, her voice is the issue of tons of smoking.

• In King of the Hill, "No Bobby Left Behind", Principle Moss tries to avert his school failing the standardize test by putting all under-performing students in the "special needs" class, but afterward they cause an outcry at an Alamo Land park where they are unsupervised and drop out of (fortunately unharmed) a log flume ride, his supervisor gives him a chewing out for letting it happen. When Moss admits he only put them in the "special needs" grade to keep them from taking the test, his supervisor speedily covers his ears and says: "I didn't hear that. You tin can't testify I heard that."

    Real Life

• Someone demonstrating a domicile-made flame thrower was approached by an off-duty cop and informed that had he been on duty, the officer would have had to abort the user for having a weapon of mass destruction. The user immediately yanked the fuel supply out and both pretended that it was a lighter. Fun fact: In most of the United States, y'all don't even need a license to own a flamethrower, though it varies on a state-to-state footing. Amidst other things, they are used for clearing brush, and in some cases are used to bargain with africanized bees.
• In Wikipedia information technology'due south a written rule. On the user level, offenses are excused for the commencement couple events without penalty, and those first couple events can happen many times if spaced far apart. On the article level, they take a number of rules and fifty-fifty a pillar saying in almost as many words "If it sounds correct, it doesn't have to follow the rules." If nosotros don't like what you're saying though, there are no shortages of rules and clauses it can be attacked with.
• In 1949, sailors of the Majestic Canadian Navy staged a minor mutiny over various full general grievances. In general, the naval staff were very lighthanded and sympathetic, refusing to call information technology a "mutiny" as that introduced various legal complications. When the commander of HMCS Athabascan was negotiating with his crew, he was given written demands; incontrovertible proof of mutiny. The captain hid the legal faux pas under his hat.
• In general, the response "What did you say?" (or variations such as "Excuse me?" or "I beg your pardon?") to an outrageous or offensive argument is an offer to let the speaker retract what they said nether the pretense that the person they're talking to just didn't hear them correctly.
• Everton FC legend Beak "Dixie" Dean was once leaving the stadium afterwards a match when a rival supporter accosted him and started making racist threats (Dixie wasn't blackness, but did accept a dark complexion, hence his nickname). When a constabulary officer came over to see what the matter was, Dean assured the officer he'd take care of information technology and so floored the man with i punch. The officer complimented the punch, then added, "Merely I never saw it"; otherwise, he would accept had to abort Dean for assault.
• In the Britain, a lot of fish-and-bit shops use Non-brewed additive, a vinegar substitute, in their nutrient since it's cheaper and faster to make than real vinegar. While it'south illegal for these shops to characterization Non-brewed additive as vinegar, food inspectors usually plow a blind centre to this since information technology'due south a very pocket-sized crime, nearly people can't tell the difference between the two, and they'd rather spend their time on more serious violations.
• Jim Butcher had a long-standing official position of "there is no Dresden Files fanfiction" as if he knew virtually the existance of said fanfiction, he'd exist obligated to take it taken down and he doesn't want to do that.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IllPretendIDidntHearThat

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