Chained to a Rock



"Now Time's Andromeda on this rock rude, With not her either beauty's equal or Her injury's, looks off by both horns of shore, Her flower, her piece of being, doomed dragon's food. Time past she has been attempted and pursued By many blows and banes; but now hears roar A wilder beast from West than all were, more Rife in her wrongs, more lawless, and more lewd."

- Gerard Manley Hopkins

A character (more often than not: young, female, virgin, attractive, royal, and wearing a revealing outfit or sometimes nothing at all) is chained to a rock, wall, or hard surface, with the intention that they will be eaten by a monster/alien/whatever.

This Damsel in Distress will more often than not be saved by a handsome hero. Indeed, many a desperate king has made a plea for someone, anyone to rescue the princess, and so win the princess's hand in marriage. (Not that you can count on his carrying out his part.)

Sometimes, any number of women have been sacrificed prior to the lot falling on the princess. Whereupon the hero will arrive to save the princess.

As a trope, this is Older Than Feudalism, going back to Greek Mythology.

Compare Chained to a Railway, Breaking the Bonds, Bound and Gagged.

Anime and Manga

 * The myth of Andromeda (see below) is the backstory of Bronze Saint Andromeda Shun from Saint Seiya. In the final test for acquiring the Bronze Cloth of Andromeda, the candidate is chained to the rock pillars at the bottom of a chasm; as the tide rises, they must hold back the water with the force of their Cosmo alone, or drown.
 * Ranma from Ranma 1/2 once had to pin Ryouga to a statue by wrapping him in chains, just to keep him from getting lost again.
 * And in an anime-only episode, Ryoga had to rescue a girl who was chained to a rock from a group of thugs. When the fight is over, the girl nonchalantly stands up, effortlessly lifting the boulder off of the ground so she can run over to Ryoga, who frees her by blowing the rock up and using it to pummel the regrouping thugs rather than breaking the chains.
 * The Super Soba episode had a variant of this, with Ranma pinning a super-strong, somewhat frenzied Akane to the floor of a podium with severed chain links, used to trap each limb. Akane promptly ripped the chunk of floor she was pinned to out of the ground in her anger.
 * In Yu-Gi-Oh!, Kaiba is chained to a rock when testing his virtual game thing for no apparent reason. other than the one given in The Abridged Series: "It gives the fan girls a chance to see you in chains".
 * This happened in Mahou Sensei Negima to Shiori disguised as Asuna in chapter 283 during her interrogation.

Comic Books

 * Subverted in XXXenophile story "Rescue 911 A.D.", where the reason why the damsel is chained up has nothing to do with being eaten by the dragon...
 * Happens in the tenth chapter of The Mercenary by Vicente Segrelles.
 * The Incredible Hulk had this done to him by Marvel's Zeus, like Prometheus, but instead of eagles, it's vultures, cause he's worth less.
 * Grab any random Conan the Barbarian comic book and flip through its pages. Good luck not finding a chained woman being menaced by a monster.

Film

 * The movie Clash of the Titans distorts the mythic Greek original somewhat, showing the rock-bound Andromeda being rescued from the Kraken by Perseus.
 * King Kong
 * The movie Dragonslayer.
 * Subverted a bit because
 * In Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Elizabeth Turner chains Jack Sparrow to the mast of the Black Pearl to deliver him to the Kraken.
 * According to Heather's documentary speech in The Blair Witch Project (before things start getting freaky) Coffin Rock became infamous for being used as the altar in the ritual murder of five locals: they were tied to the rock, facially disfigured, and finally disembowelled.
 * In the documentary "Curse of the Blair Witch" it's revealed that an old woman by the name of Elly Kedward was executed by being tied to a tree and left to die of exposure. Unfortunately, this backfired badly on her accusers when she returned as the Blair Witch.
 * In the finale of Star Wars: Episode 2 - Attack of the Clones, Padme, Obi-Wan, and Anakin are all chained to rocks to be killed by large monsters.
 * X 2 X Men United: Magneto chains Gen. Stryker to a concrete slab, where he is later smashed by a wall of water from a shattered dam.
 * The Russian protagonist in The Beast of War (1988) is tied to a rock by his own comrades and booby-trapped for the Afghan rebels to find. When he's attacked by wild dogs and the grenade slips from under his head, some frantic wriggling is required to let the grenade roll out from under him, over the edge of the rock where it detonates (fortunately driving off the dogs). Convincing the Afghans not to cut the throat of this served up infidel is another matter.
 * Cthulhu (2007). A female store clerk who tries to warn the protagonist is seen towards the end of the movie tied to a post with barbed wire out in the ocean, as a sacrifice for the Deep Ones.
 * Conan the Barbarian features three examples. When Conan first encounters his future sidekick Subotai, he is chained to a rock to be eaten by wolves as punishment for various crimes. Later, Conan himself is tied to a tree to be eaten by vultures. Finally, The Damsel in Distress gets this treatment by the heroes when they lay a trap for the Big Bad's war party, though in this case it was more as bait than to kill her.

Literature

 * Done in the Discworld novel Guards! Guards!, to Lady Ramkin. Since Ankh-Morpork is built on loam, they had to settle for chaining her to a piece of broken wall.
 * Played straight in The Last Apprentice series, when as a young woman, the main character's mother is chained to a rock  And they nailed her hand to the rock, although she pulled it free with no effort once rescued. rather than a monster, however, she was left to suffer for several days before her enemies would return to drain her of blood. Predictably, the person who rescued her became her husband. The silver chain was eventually given to her son, who used it as a weapon from the second book onwards.
 * In Orlando Furioso, two princesses are chained to rocks at different times: Angelica and Olympia. Although both are rescued, neither one ends up marrying the rescuer.
 * The featured illustration to this work is used for a vicious deconstruction in Walter Moers's Wilde Reise durch die Nacht. After her rescue, the maiden's first words to the gryphon who bore the hero to the rock are: "Hey, I thought the little bleeder was supposed to buy it! Who's going to reimburse me for my dead dragon now?"
 * In "One Good Knight", by Mercedes Lackey, the Acadians chain their sacrifices to a stake despite an ample supply of rocks in Acadia. No rescuers come to save the virgins until the princess herself is chained there, but
 * In The Silmarillion, Maedhros is chained to a cliff by his right wrist. There is no monster; there is no need for one, since he is chained there for years. By the time his cousin comes to rescue him, he is begging to be killed.
 * In The Stormlight Archive, bridgemen that commit serious infractions, such as murder or repeated theft may be chained to a wall facing into a highstorm. This is tantamount to a death sentence, as highstorms are incredibly powerful, with winds capable of stripping skin off (assuming you aren't crushed by flying debris first).

Live Action TV

 * Jo in Doctor Who serial The Daemons.
 * The Power of Kroll, with the Doctor and Romana I.
 * Also in Timelash with Peri.
 * And in The Sontaran Experiment, with Sarah Jane.
 * Played straight in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of all shows. Buffy, Cordelia and another damsel in distress are chained to a dungeon wall and about to be fed to a giant monster, then rescued by the rest of the gang in the nick of time. Also bizarrely, this turns out to be all leading up to one of a series of "drinking kills" aesops.
 * Done again in the season six episode, "Normal Again". Xander, Willow, and Dawn are tied up in a room with a demon, and the demon is let loose to kill them. The villain who did this to them? Buffy (under the influence of her hallucinations). She snaps out of it and kills the demon herself.
 * Not immediately. The demon would have killed them if Tara hadn't shown up.
 * Possible Subversion. In the Stargate SG-1 Direct to DVD movie, Stargate: Continuum, the supposed final Ba'al (its a long story) is secured by alien chains to a sandstone-textured wall awaiting his execution. The possible subversion? The Monster is the symbiote, the removal of which will save Baal's innocent host-body from his millenia long imprisonment.

Myth And Legends

 * Prometheus, who stole fire from the Olympian gods and gave it to mankind. Was chained to a rock, with an eagle eating his liver every day for all eternity. At night, his liver would regenerate so the eagle could eat it again.
 * Until Hercules came to get him. Still, centuries of having your liver eaten isn't something to laugh at.
 * Loki, the Norse trickster god from the Edda and father of Miðgarðsormur, Fenrir the wolf and the death goddess Hel. Was chained to a rock with the entrails of his murdered sons, and a snake hanging over him dripping poisonous acid into his face. Whenever his wife went outside to empty out the bowl she was holding up to catch the drops, Loki's pain made him writhe in his bonds, which created earthquakes. The prophecy was his chains would fail when Ragnarök start. Will be killed in the Final Battle between the gods of Ásgarðr and their enemies.
 * In Greek mythology, the Trojan princess Hesione was Chained to a Rock to appease a sea monster set loose because the king of Troy had cheated the gods of their payment for building the walls of Troy. Hercules rescued her. (Whereupon the king of Troy tried to cheat him, and Hercules sacked Troy.)
 * This was also Andromeda's plight when her mother's arrogance, and claims that she was more beautiful than the Nereids, angered Poseidon. She was saved by her future husband, Perseus.

Video Games

 * Played almost absolutely straight in the opening scene of Bikini Karate Babes where a young attractive female in a bikini is tied to a tree. Another young attractive female in a bikini then removes her top. To be fair though it was payback for doing it to her earlier sans ropes and trees.
 * Ganondorf got this treatment in The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, when the Sages were attempting to execute him. He broke out of course, but given how the Sages usually aren't the most useful bunch, it's a credit that they could chain him up like that to begin with.
 * He later pulls this trope on Princess Zelda, by tying her to a statue of the Golden Goddesses and the Triforce.
 * Not surprisingly, there's one of these in Shadowgate. Even less surprisingly, she kills you if freed. So much for Video Game Caring Potential . ..
 * In Dead Rising, if you are late to Kent's appointment he knocks you unconscious, takes your clothes, and chains you to a mall fountain to be eaten by zombies. The resulting barehanded boss fight against Kent and the zombie horde is one of the hardest in the game.
 * In Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis, after completing Formello, Alphonse gets captured and interrogated by Nichart. After realizing that Alphonse doesn't know anything beyond the party line, Nichart buggers off, leaving Alphonse chained up in the dungeon to drown when the tide comes in. Naturally, he gets rescued, setting the next bit of the plot in motion.

Web Comics

 * Juathuur example: Merlu is bound to a tree (magically). More literally, Lok is chained to... whatever walls in his world are made of.
 * Horribly subverted in Oglaf (SFW, but entire site is NSFW)

Web Original

 * In The Gamers Alliance, the Sirithai chain the heroes they have captured into large poles, prompting the other heroes to challenge the monster in the Sirithai arena to save their friends from being eaten.
 * In the Bionicle serial Federation of Fear, the former Makuta leader, Miserix, is found chained to a cave wall, unable to escape despite his incredible amount of special powers. He spent centuries there absorbing the nearby creatures into his own essence to pad out his armor and make himself grow, but the chains increased in size with him. This cruel imprisonment was actually meant to keep him (and his still loyal Makuta brethren tasked with killing him) out of harm's way, by making sure the then-current leader would not learn about his existence.

Western Animation

 * In one episode of Justice League Aquaman is chained to the bottom of an erupting undersea volcano along with his infant son by his usurping brother. Somewhat subverted when he  to save the both of them.
 * Lampshade hung in an episode of Futurama, where it happens to Leela. For good measure, the leader rips her top to expose more cleavage.
 * In Disney's The Three Musketeers, Mickey is chained in a underground dungeon on an island to drown when the tide comes in.