Have You Come to Gloat?

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

When someone is captured, and then one of the captors goes to visit the captive. The captive says the name of this trope. But usually, if it's shown, then he hasn't come to gloat, and it's just Exposition. Sometimes he gloats anyway, though. Not limited to captures, either - it can be spoken any time when there are two longtime rivals and one of them suffers a misfortune. Sometimes the rival makes an unethical offer. For example, he may offer to buy the other partner's half of their business (the price is good, but it'll still mean they're out of business), or offer to pay the other partner's debts in exchange for getting the Love Interest, etc.

Examples of Have You Come to Gloat? include:


Comic Books

  • Happened in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic. The turtles were being held prison by a crazed whaler who was essentally a Japanese Captain Ahab. When his first mate visits them in the brig, they start cursing at him and one of them shouts, "Come to gloat?" Subverted in that the whaler has actually come down to free them.

Literature

Live Action TV

  • In Blackadder II, when the gang wrongly executes a man, Percy is forced to think of an excuse on the spot as to why he can't have visitors. All he can come up with is this trope.

Video Games

  • Edgeworth says it to Phoenix in the first Ace Attorney game after being arrested. Of course, Phoenix isn't there to gloat, but rather to defend Edgeworth.
  • Loghain from Dragon Age invokes this trope the first time the Warden speaks to him at camp. He'll ask whether the Warden is planning on insulting him or keeping him as a trophy. You have an array of dialogue options.
  • World of Warcraft; a quest line in the Borean Tundra requires you to speak to a naga priestess named Veejhas who is being held captive in her own temple by Kvaldir. When you do so, she hisses loudly and assumes you've come to mock her. You aren't; your faction opposes the Kvaldir too. Even so, she emphasizes that her cooperation is very temporary.

Web Comics

Western Animation