Damsel in Distress/Playing With
Basic Trope: A female character is kidnapped and in need of rescue.
- Straight: Princess Alice is kidnapped by the Big Bad and must be rescued by Bob.
- Exaggerated:
- Princess Alice spends more time in dungeons than in her own rooms.
- Damsel Scrappy (potentially)
- Justified:
- Princess Alice lived a sheltered life, and doesn't have the skills to defend herself or escape without guards.
- Princess Alice would happily kick the asses of her captors and take names afterwards, if she wasn't greatly outnumbered by her kidnappers, who are all heavily armed and have her imprisoned within a practically inescapable prison. Since she's more practical than suicidal, she figures it's probably more sensible to wait for rescue rather than try to break herself out.
- Inverted: Alice is the Action Girl who saves anyone in danger.
- Subverted:
- Bob goes to rescue Alice, brcause he knows that she's a lady and therefore weak but she proves perfectly capable of rescuing herself.
- Alice is working for the Big Bad, or she IS the Big Bad.
- Deliberately Distressed Damsel, Decoy Damsel
- Double Subverted:
- Despite showing some traits that make her look like a fighter, Alice ends up proving to be a Faux Action Girl and gets recaptured anyways.
- Alice manages to fight off her initial captors, but before she can waltz away from her victory, ends up being overpowered by a second wave of superior forces.
- Parodied:
- Alice is a barely competent Royal Brat, and Bob is a bored Punch Clock Hero tired of rescuing her.
- Alice is so used to being held captive that she's capable of predicting everything her captors will do, and responds to the whole situation with weary, resigned sarcasm.
- Deconstructed:
- Damsel Scrappy
- Princess Alice is kidnapped by the Big Bad, and gets put through some sessions of Break the Cutie, in which the Big Bad tells her that his Evil Plan only works because of her utter helpnessness. Bob saves Alice, but the trauma of being unable to do anything while Bob risked his life to save her has severely scarred her. She breaks up with him because she doesn't want to be The Load anymore.
- While being kidnapped, Alice is beaten, starved, brutally raped, subject to horrific and innovative experiments, and god knows what else. By the time Bob reaches Alice, she is a gibbering, Body Horror-ridden trainwreck.
- Alice has been kidnapped or her mentality was put in distress that she really needs help or saving... and nobody wants to save her, despite her pleas, because everyone else is too busy to mind their own business.
- Reconstructed:
- Princess Alice goes through a Heroic BSOD at her inability to rescue herself, but snaps out of it when her diplomatic skills are needed to avert a war. Bob reminds her that, even though she has to be rescued from physical danger sometimes, she's been the one to get the rest of the party out of political danger just as many times.
- After a long while of nobody answering, finally there comes Bob the Selfless Hero arrives on the scene and takes it upon himself to save her from distress... regardless of his other schedules.
- Zig Zagged: Alice gets her self into a situation where she needs to be rescued. She has her Badass moment and gets her and her rescuers out of danger. Later though she gets her self captured again.
- Averted:
- Nobody bothers trying to kidnap Princess Alice, because its not in their best interests to do so.
- They don't kidnap her because they know she's an Action Girl.
- Enforced: "The Big Bad needs to be established as such. He has to Kick the Dog is a way that will affect Bob on a personal level and give him a justification to chase after him. Let's have the Big Bad kidnapp his girlfriend!"
- Lampshaded: "Rescuing damsels in distress? Hey, It's What I Do."
- Invoked: "We need a hostage worth good money. Princess Alice is in no position to defend herself; capture her."
- Defied: Princess Alice has been trained in self-defense, so she dispatches those sent to capture her and never ends up imprisoned in the first place.
- Discussed: "You can't expect Princess Alice to save herself... she's badly outnumbered and she's had no weapons training."
- Conversed: "Can't this Alice even hit the Big Bad with a vase or something? Her uselessness is getting annoying!"
- Played For Laughs: Princess Alice getting kidnapped is a total Excuse Plot to get the story going, and happens every Tuesday, like clockwork. Princess Alice is quite resigned to this, and greets each kidnapping with a sigh, wiling away her hours in the dungeons.
- Played For Drama: Princess Alice being kidnapped is a devastating experience for her, Bob (her rescuer and lover), and the people of her kingdom. Each time it happens, Bob goes through much angst over allowing her to be taken again, and Princess Alice gets progressively more insecure in her own power each time she allows herself to be taken, which impedes her abilities as a ruler.
Help! I don't know how to get back!