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Galley Slave (view source)

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{{trope}}
A staple of the [[Sword and Sandal]] and Fantasy genres. The hero is [[Made a Slave|enslaved]] and forced to work as a galley rower, while [[Working Onon the Chain Gang|chained to his fellows]]. Necessary embellishments include:
 
* A large sailor beating time on a drum
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** And in another story, the drummer thing is subverted when the pirates end up in command of a Roman galley, they ask their [[Scary Black Man]] to be the drummer, at which point he pulls off a high-speed drum solo before being replaced with a standard drummer.
* The ''[[Thorgal]]'' volume "The Black Galley": Thorgal gets captured and becomes one of these. There's the drummer (who's a [[Scary Black Man]]) and the whip-man.
* In ''[[De Cape Etet Dede Crocs]]'', our heroes are sent to a galley, with the requisite chains, drummers and slave uprising. Amusingly, [[All Drummers Are Animals|the drummer wouldn't look out of place in a metal band]], and is seen still beating away on his drum ''while on the lifeboat''.
 
== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[Ben -Hur]]'' was the first film to popularize this trope.
* ''The [[Crimson Permanent Assurance]]'', the [[Monty Python]] short at the beginning of ''[[The Meaning of Life]]'', has a scene in which the hard-working accountants switch to galley slaves, complete with BONG-BONG-BONG drummer.
* ''Eric the Viking'' also has a slave galley (chasing the heroes' boat). Here the brutal first mate is Japanese (with silly subtitles).
* ''[[The Sea Hawk (Film)|The Sea Hawk]]''
* In ''[[The Three Stooges]] Meet Hercules'', the boys and the romantic lead end up as these. This eventually causes steering issues..
 
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* Happens in "The Legend of Luke", one of the Redwall novels.
* In the [[Gor|World of Gor]], one of the few roles a male slave could live and die in. Captain Bosk made it a practice to free slaves of captured vessels, which made them more motivated rowers, and fighters when necessary, out of gratitude and aversion to re-enslavement.
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s ''[[The Hour of the Dragon (Literature)|The Hour of the Dragon]]'', [[Conan the Barbarian]] is taken aboard a ship with these. He starts the mutiny and frees them.
* Played with in [[Shogun]]. When Blackthorne sees the galley that will transport him to the capital, he panics thinking its a slave ship and is willing to die in order not to be a galley slave. It is revealed that the rowers were all full samurai doing their duty rather than slaves.
* In ''[[The Long Ships (Literature)|The Long Ships]]'', protagonist Orm and his companions are captured in Spain while on a viking trip, and spend two years as galley slaves.
* ''Master of Whitestorm'' begins with the titular character and his [[The Ishmael|off-and-on Ishmael]] slaves working the same oar of a Mhurgai ship.
 
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* In Frankie Howerd's ''[[Up Pompeii!]]'', the main character has a [[Have We Met?]]? moment with another slave. He doesn't recognize the other guy at first, and the other guy only realizes when he sees the back of his head. He sat behind him in the galley, so that's all he saw of him for all those years, but he would recognize the back of that bonce ''anywhere'' after that.
* In the early ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' serial ''The Romans'', the heroes are separated while visiting Nero's Rome, and Ian ends up enslaved and working a galley.
 
== [[Music]] ==
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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* One of the "bad endings" of the ''[[Tunnels and Trolls (Tabletop Game)|Tunnels & Trolls]]'' solo adventure ''City of Terror'', has your character end up as galley slave. "You learn to enjoy your life as a galley slave, it's not bad.. But it is HELL, when the captain wants to water-ski."
 
== [[Theater]] ==
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== [[Video Games]] ==
* Downplayed in ''[[Golden Sun (Video Game)|Golden Sun]]''. Monsters attack the ship Isaac and his friends are on, and by the time you fight each wave off, one of the (voluntarily employed) rowers has been put out of commission. After each round, you have to pick one of the NPC passengers to press-gang into service as a replacement for the rest of the voyage, whether they like it or not. Choosing the right combination of replacements will actually unbalance the rowers, sending the ship off-course and getting you early access to the [[Bonus Dungeon]].
 
{{reflist}}
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