I Have Your Wife: Difference between revisions

{{quote|'''Military Commander:''' Tim, they've got your wife!

'''[[Action Hero|Tim:]]''' But I'm not married!

 

The [[Big Bad]] tries to get the hero (or someone else) to [[An Offer You Can't Refuse|do his bidding]] by taking someone precious from him and essentially holding them to ransom. It's often a significant other, frequently a wife or girlfriend.

# Villain tells hero that he is being watched. If he doesn't obey orders and/or informs the authorities, then he will kill the significant other.

# The hero will then have to a) steal something, b) deliver something, or c) kill someone.

# Eventually, the significant other will be released, either by completion of mission or [[Big Damn Heroes|rescue]] by the hero (in a [[Roaring Rampage of Rescue]]) or [[The Cavalry]]. A [[Reverse Mole]] is sometimes involved.

 

Can't blame many a hero for [[It's Not You, It's My Enemies|taking precautions]] against this.

 

 

If this is the reason why the villain is doing it, then it's a case of [[The Commies Made Me Do It]].

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* Griffith from ''[[Berserk]]'' does this with one of the Queen's mooks in order to blackmail him into helping Griffith kill the Queen, only the hostage is the mook's young daughter.

** Zoisite ''loves'' this strategy in the anime. Zoisite has his youma kidnap Naru in order to threaten Nephrite, as he's figured out Nephrite is obsessed with her, and tries to ransom her for the Black Crystal using three powerful youma. Nephrite just proceeds to beat up the youma and take Naru back, though Zoisite ends up killing him a little while later anyway. Later in the season, Zoisite uses Naru ''again'' to threaten Sailor Moon into giving up the only rainbow crystal the Sailor Senshi have collected, this time by having a youma suffocate her until Sailor Moon gives up and hands it over (though he ''initially'' planned to just turn Naru into a youma and threaten her that way, but he missed his attack and hit a [[Power Ranger]] parody instead.) Finally, Zoisite captured the Sailor Senshi through a convoluted scheme in order to force Tuxedo Mask to give up the rainbow crystals which ''he'' had collected. This is the only time he actually failed because Sailor Venus made her first appearance in this episode, thus avoiding his trap...though he still got information on Tuxedo Mask's true identity in the process.

** Rubeus captures all four of the Guardian Senshi during ''Sailor Moon R'' and demands Sailor Moon arrive in his UFO to hand over Chibiusa and the ginzuishou if she wants them back.

* This is used quite a bit in ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh (anime)|Yu-Gi-Oh]]''. Pegasus takes Yugi's grandfather's soul to make him compete in his tournament. Then there's the Joey anchor duel. [[Rule of Three|Then]] Duke Devlin humiliates Joey and makes Yugi duel to get him out of the dog suit. I'm sure there's more.

* Done in ''[[Full Metal Panic!]] Fumoffu'' when someone tells Sousuke that they have Chidori kidnapped. So before showing up to make a deal with the bad guys he kidnaps or threatens EVERY SINGLE [[Mook|MOOK'S]] MOST PRECIOUS SIGNIFICANT OTHER to force them to give up Chidori. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] indeed.

* ''[[Transmetropolitan]]'' makes use of this with Spider Jerusalem's wife's cryogenically preserved head. Mostly subverted in that Spider does not actually ''care'' about his ''ex''-wife, much to the consternation of those who have her. Spider then completely subverts this by {{spoiler|throwing his wife's cryogenically preserved head into the river. Since she was the one who had angered the kidnappers in the first place, they then calm down and leave.}}

* Bungled by Fink and Mean Machine Angel in ''[[Judge Dredd]]'' when they abduct Dredd's landlady assuming she is his wife.

 

 

* ''[[And Shine Heaven Now]]'': {{spoiler|Walter. In ''[[Hellsing]]'', he pulls a [[Face Heel Turn]] which is never adequately explained. Here, the bad guys have his daughter, Maggie (imported from ''[[Read or Die]]''). How far he will go to keep her safe remains to be seen.}}

* In the ''[[Mass Effect]]'' fanfic ''[[Interstitium]]'', Wrex and Shephard have to set this up in order to convince the other krogan to let Mordin take care of some personal business on their planet. Since Mordin doesn't ''have'' a wife, however, they have to fake it. With {{spoiler|Miranda}} playing the part, and Mordin [[Large Ham|hamming it up]] for all it's worth.

* In ''[[The Big Lebowski]]'' the (non-Dude) Jeffrey Lebowski's wife, Bunny, is "kidnapped" and held for one million dollars ransom.

* In ''[[Bon Cop, Bad Cop]]'', the villains kidnap the French cop's daughter in similar fashion.

* In ''[[Capricorn One]]'', the astronauts are told the safety of their families is contingent on their willingness to cooperate with the fake moon landing.

* ''[[Die Hard]]'' plays around with this. McClane's wife is among the hostages taken by Hans' crew, but Hans is completely unaware of this until late in the movie. And once he does find out and radios McClane to tell him about it, he can't get a hold of him because he's already fighting [[The Dragon]].

** The fourth movie has the villains capturing his daughter instead. Instead of even feigning that he'll cooperate, he just tells them he's going to kill them all and take her back.

*** And when they try to emotionally manipulate him by putting her on the line with him? [[Little Miss Badass|She tells her dad exactly how many bad guys are left.]]

* In ''[[Clockstoppers]]'', the [[Big Bad]] kidnaps Zak's father to ransom back Zak's hypertime watch.

* In ''[[Despicable Me]],'' {{spoiler|up-and-coming supervillain Vector kidnaps Gru's adopted daughters}} and demands {{spoiler|the moon, which Gru has shrunk and removed from its orbit,}} in exchange. {{spoiler|Gru complies, but when Vector goes back on the deal, he finds himself dealing with an enraged [[Papa Wolf]].}}

* The ''[[Firewall]]''-esque [[Lifetime Movie of the Week]] ''[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|The Kidnapping]]'' has Judd Nelson kidnap a bank employee's daughter (and her babysitter, who they promptly kill when she tries to escape with the kid) to get her to give them access to a specific safe-deposit box.

* The movie ''[[Hostage]]'': Bad guy kidnaps Bruce Willis' family to force Bruce to get a DVD that incriminates him from a hostage situation going on elsewhere. After resolving the hostage situation and getting the DVD, he manages to kill the bad guy and save his family.

* Just about every post-''[[Indiana Jones]]'' Harrison Ford movie features this plot, most recently 2006's ''[[Firewall]]''.

** In a more straightforward example from the same film, the [[Big Bad]] forces the cooperation of the scientists he kidnapped by holding their wives and children in prison cells.

* The movie ''[[Ransom]]'' is a complete subversion of this trope. Instead of paying the ransom for his son, he offers the amount of 2 million bucks to anyone who can find and rescue his son instead, because he assumes his son is either 1. already dead, or 2. the kidnappers have no intention of returning his son anyway.

* ''[[Red Eye (film)|Red Eye]]'': "Right now, our guy is parked outside your dad's house, listening to a little smooth jazz while he sharpens his 12-inch K-Bar. That's a knife."

* The kidnappers in ''[[Ruthless People]]'' threaten to kill Sam Stone's wife. Turns out, however, that he was going to kill her, and the kidnappers appear to have saved him the trouble.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* In the book, play and movie ''The Desperate Hours'', three escaped cons take the protagonist's family hostage in their own home.

* It happens in a quite interesting way in ''[[The Devil to Pay In The Backlands]]'', because it's the [[Anti-Hero|heroes]] who kidnap [[Devil in Plain Sight|Hermógenes]]'s wife to use her as bait. Eventually, she [[Badass Adorable|becomes Diadorim's friend]].

* In ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'', James blackmails Bella to sneak away from the Cullens by pretending he has her mother as a hostage: in reality, he just played a recording of her voice over the phone.

* Standard peacekeeping method in [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Westeros]]. Defeated nobles send their children to live with the victors as hostages/wards. The kids are typically treated well, but there's the ever lingering threat that the children will be killed if the defeated lords misbehave. Most prominent example in the series: Theon Greyjoy.

 

 

** ''24'' loves this trope so much it was parodied [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Bc0mG5omTo by Derrick Comedy].

* In ''[[Alias (TV series)|Alias]]'' series 2, in order for Sark to give her an antidote to save Vaughn from a deadly illness, Sydney was forced to assassinate (or rather attempt, it turned out to be a ploy for the two to work together) Arvin Sloane. This is a slight variation on the scenario.

* After playing it straight multiple times, there is a spot of [[Lampshade Hanging]] on ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''. Harmony claims to have the perfect plan to defeat Buffy, but when Spike outlines the above plan as a guess, she steals the idea. Of course, it fails miserably.

* In the ''[[Burn Notice]]'' episode "End Run", Michael is controlled by threats against his brother who, ironically, is completely unaware of his danger {{spoiler|right up until Brennen ''shoots him''.}}

* Neatly averted in the ''[[Due South]]'' episode "The Vault". Ray and Fraser are trapped in a vault with armed robbers outside. The robbers capture Ray's sister Francesca, and call a phone located inside the vault. They inform the heroes that they have Francesca, and Fraser immediately responds by disabling the phone before the robbers have a chance make any demands. Fraser correctly reasons that if the robbers cannot communicate with them, they have no way to threaten them and no reason to harm Francesca.

* At the end of the miniseries ''[[Kill Point]]'', [[Worthy Opponent]] Mr. Wolf {{spoiler|takes negotiator Horst Cali's wife hostage to force him to slip Wolf and his team out of the police standoff. To his credit, Wolf doesn't seem happy to do it and, when one of his men decides not to let her go, he gives Cali a gun and covering fire to go to her rescue}}.

* In the ''[[Lost]]'' episode "The Hunting Party", after Jack tells Kate to stay behind while he, Sawyer and Locke search for Michael, she follows them and gets captured by the Others. Jack was not too happy.

* In the ''[[MacGyver]]'' episode "Hearts of Steel", disgruntled steel mill workers attempt to kidnap the daughter of the industrialist who put them out of work, but end up abducting his housekeeper's daughter instead.

* ''[[NCIS]]'' does this in "See No Evil", until {{spoiler|it turns out the officer pulled it on himself to get $2m from the Pentagon}}.

** Also, the Mexican drug cartel's have Gibbs' {{spoiler|heterosexual life partner, Franks}}.

* This is subverted in an episode of ''[[Sharpe]]'', when a villainous Frenchman tells his more noble countryman he won't plead for the release of his English wife. Sharpe promptly walks over and helps the English wife mount a horse behind her husband.

* In the first season finale of ''[[Los Simuladores]]'', their leader Santos is kidnapped in exchange for helping a mob boss being set free.

* On ''[[The X-Files]]'', Mulder makes it very clear very early on in the series that the only way to hurt him is to hurt Scully, and that he'll [[Always Save the Girl|go to great lengths to get her back.]] So, Scully falls victim to this quite a lot. But as the bad guys quickly figure out, this never has the desired effect. If anything, it makes Mulder even more resistant to dealing with them and he [[Took a Third Option|gets her back his way.]] Not to mention the [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] that goes along with this. This trope makes up about half of the 1998 movie ''Fight the Future.''

** It totally works the other way around, too. And if anything, Scully is even ''more'' frightening when Mulder is taken. In season 8, Mulder is missing and she unleashes hell on whoever gets in her way. Never mind that she's pregnant. It takes Skinner pointing out that Mulder wouldn't want her to risk her life and the baby's to get her even take a breath.

* This trope is the reason why the human rights commission agent in ''[[NCIS: Los Angeles]]'' uncharacteristically attempted to kill the defected sister of the Sudanese dictator in transit before she could testify against her brother: A French CEO kidnapped his wife and daughter, and he threatened to have them killed if he didn't assassinate her.

* Done by the villain in the ''[[Rizzoli and Isles]]'' episode "My Own Worst Enemy" is order to ensure the cooperation of an importer.

 

== Newspaper Comics ==

 

 

* In ''[[Oedipus at Colonus]]'', Creon, knowing Oedipus is necessary for victory, forcefully abducts Oedipus' daughters (on whom he is completely dependent) to get him to come. Fortunately Theseus intervenes.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* In ''[[Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood|Assassin's Creed Brotherhood]]'', Baron de Valois captures Bartolomeo's wife and tries to make him surrender.

* In ''[[Clash at Demonhead]]'', Bang is told that his girlfriend has been kidnapped and instructed to meet one of the bad guys at a specific location. {{spoiler|It's a lie; she was never kidnapped.}}

* The plot of the original ''[[Double Dragon]]'' is about Billy and Jimmy being forced to fight their way into the Black Warriors' turf to save Billy's girlfriend Marian.

* In ''[[The Force Unleashed]] 2'', Darth Vader tries to force Starkiller to work for him again by kidnapping Juno Eclipse, the woman he loves.

{{quote|'''Vader''': Find and kill General Kota. If you refuse, the woman dies. You will return to me and give yourself to The Dark Side. If you resist, she dies. And when your training is complete, you will hunt down and execute the rebel leaders. If you FAIL, SHE DIES! }}

{{quote|'''Charlie Jolson''': I ring you, you do the job. You don't do what I tell you, the kid dies. You don't do it where I tell you, the kid dies. You don't do it when I tell you, the kid dies! Are you getting my drift? Now you want to see your kid again, you do exactly what I say. You talk to anyone, you're late, or you let me down, your kid dies! Do I make myself clear?

'''Paul Saunders''' (as Mark): But what if I go skydiving?

* ''[[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney]]'' did this in the last case of the second game, only with the hero's beloved assistant Maya rather than his significant other.

** Whether Maya happens to be Phoenix's significant other or not is up for debate, as the ''[[Ace Attorney]]'' fandom happens to be one of the fiercest with its absurd amount of pairings for the [[Loads and Loads of Characters]] that show up in the series. A majority of the heterosexual [[Shipping|shippers]] tend to go with Maya being Phoenix's girlfriend, so the trope would be perfectly valid here.

** Appears again in ''[[Professor Layton and the Last Specter]]''. The [[Big Bad]] held {{spoiler|Clark}}'s wife hostage to force him to cooperate.

* The freeware RPG Game ''Quintessence - The Blighted Venom'': Lunair kidnapped Reivier's wife Serai to Aeria under orders of the Duke, but after finding out that her own family betrayed her, struck a deal with Reivier that she would bring Serai back if he gets her the cure to the Quintessence's aftermath.

* A [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] takes Lilah hostage in ''[[Ctrl+Alt+Del]].'' To get her back, Ethan must surrender his crown as the King of Wintereenmas. In what can only be regarded as his personal [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]], Ethan throws the crown on the floor before the guy can finish making the demand.

* The Fallen tries this in the ''[[Insecticomics]]'', kidnapping Lazorbeak in order to manipulate Kickback. Kickback simply waits for Lazorbeak to rescue herself, which she does with great glee.

 

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

 

 

* In the ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (animation)|Dungeons and Dragons]]'' series, [[The Archer|Hank the Ranger]] and his friend [[Cute Bruiser|Bobby the Barbarian]] are kidnapped by [[Big Bad]] Venger, who keeps Bobby hostage and forces Hank to do his dirty work ''and'' not say a word about ''why'' is he doing it, much to the horror of the other kids in the group (especially [[Shrinking Violet|Sheila the Thief]], who happens to be Bobby's sister).

* Subverted in an episode of ''[[Family Guy]]'' where in a flashback, Lois is captured by criminals who demand a ransom of her rich father. They put her on the line. His response: "Now honey, you know family policy, we don't negotiate with kidnappers."

* The penultimate episode of ''[[Static Shock]]'': Omnara kidnaps Static's father. Richie, Static's best friend and sidekick, also has the tendency to get kidnapped a lot.

* The first season finale of ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'': {{spoiler|Slade injects Robin's ''four'' teammates with potentially deadly nanoprobes and has his finger on the button, forcing Robin to become his sidekick. The scheme falls apart when Slade cows Robin by engaging the probes on a limited setting; the combination of this sudden inexplicable pain that seems to be under Slade's control and Robin's frantic reaction to it tips off the Titans that they are being used as hostages to control their friend. And then Robin puts the nanoprobes in himself when Slade is about to kill his friends, and since they aren't selective, he'd die too.}}

* At some battle during the [[Ancient China|Chu-Han War]] after the collapse of the [[Dynasties From Shang to Qing|Qin Dynasty]], the King of Chu, [[Hot-Blooded|Xiang Yu]] eventually captured the father of his rival, [[Boisterous Bruiser|Liu Bang]]. At one battle (I forget which), Xiang Yu and Liu Bang faced one another across a ravine. Xiang Yu yells (more or less), "Just give up! I have your father, and I'm going to boil him alive!" Liu Bang famously responded, "[[I Shall Taunt You|Send me a cup of the soup]]!"

** For the curious, Liu Bang defeated Xiang Yu (founding the Han Dynasty in the process), and Liu's father didn't get the least bit boiled.

 

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[[Category:Stock Phrases]]

[[Category:I Have Your Wife]]