I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: Difference between revisions

 

If you are [[Sliding Scale of Antagonist Vileness|evil enough]], one way to turn someone to your side or motivate him to stay there is to threaten to hurt someone he cares about. This "friend" might indeed be the target's [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|best friend]] or a love interest; however, if the target is the kind who tries to protect everyone, almost anyone may serve as a hostage.

 

Compare [[Even Mooks Have Loved Ones]], where the Big Bad doesn't directly target his underlings' loved ones but merely shows callous disregard for them. If you actually punish his friend for his failure, that's a form of [[Revenge by Proxy]]. See also [[Blofeld Ploy]].

 

* In the Water 7 arc of ''[[One Piece]]'', the [[Secret Police|CP9]] make Robin help them in obtaining the blueprints of [[Lost Superweapon|Pluto]] in order to spare the lives of the rest of the [[True Companions|Straw Hat Pirates]].

** In Luffy's flashback arc, Sabo's father forces him to come home by threatening Ace and Luffy's lives, and tries to get him to deny his involvement with them in that same way, but ends up having to bribe the official.

* In the introductory arc of ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'', one of the teachers tells Kuwabara that if he doesn't stop fighting and get his grades up, one of his friends will have his work permit revoked. Then, after Kuwabara keeps his end of the deal, the teacher tries to deliberately misgrade his tests so that he won't have to honor his end (And gets caught by the principal).

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

 

 

== [[Film]] ==

* In ''[[X Men Origins: Wolverine|X Men Origins Wolverine]]'' Stryker forces {{spoiler|Kayla Silverfox}} to conspire with him this way by threatening to kill {{spoiler|her sister, Emma Frost}}.

* In the film ''[[Full Metal Jacket]]'', the first part of the film is about the training of the new recruits in the US Marine Corps. One of them, nicknamed "Gomer Pyle," can't seem to improve in his training, so [[Drill Sergeant Nasty|Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann]] stops punishing him and starts punishing everyone else. The other recruits take it out on him in the infamous "blanket party" scene, where they pin him to his bunk with a blanket and beat the crap out of him with bars of soap wrapped in towels. After this, Pyle starts to show improvement in his training, but also starts to {{spoiler|develop a [[Driven to Madness|psychotic breakdown]], ultimately culminating in the murder of Hartmann and [[Ate His Gun|his own suicide]]}}.

* In "Time Limit" an officer has made propaganda for the North Koreans while a POW and is going to be court martialed. One officer wants to know why and finds {{spoiler|that after the one POW who betrayed the other men was strangled by the man who drew the short straw, the Korean commander called in the ranking POW and told him that he was going to do everything he was told or the other sixteen men would be taken out and shot right in front of him. He gave in.}}

 

* In ''[[The Shamer Chronicles|The Shamer's Signet]]'', Dina is forced to use her Shamer powers on anyone her captor sees fit, for trivial things. If she refuses, he'll kill Tavis, the random kid who was with her when she was kidnapped.

* ''[[Altered Carbon]]'': {{spoiler|Kawahara}} threatens to lock Kovacs' girlfriend into a [[Fate Worse Than Death|mind-shattering virtual interrogation hell]] if he doesn't do as {{spoiler|she}} demands.

* This is how the kids control {{spoiler|Erek King}} in the last few ''[[Animorphs]]'' books. One of Jake's biggest [[What the Hell, Hero?]] moments.

* The children's book ''[[The Whipping Boy]]'' is based on the 15th century real-life practice of punishing a companion to a prince as the royal line was considered divine and only another from the royal line could do the punishing on pain of death. In real life, a whipping boy would be a lifelong companion to the prince so that their emotional bond would make the whipping a real punishment for the prince. In the book, the whipping boy was chosen to start a new life in the castle with the young prince, who was a [[Royal Pain]]. This trope is played with, however as {{spoiler|when the two are kidnapped, the whipping boy is more educated than the prince, so believing the prince to be the whipping boy, he is the one punished}}.

 

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'': Anya wants to undo a wish she granted as a vengeance demon that killed an entire fraternity. D'Hoffryn, her boss, says it will require the death of a vengeance demon and Anya offers herself, as a way to [[Redemption Equals Death|repent for her sins.]] Then D'Hoffryn summons up Anya's friend Halfrek and casually kills her.

* Combined with [[I Have Your Wife]], this is the reason the characters do most of what they do in [[Prison Break]].

* In a double example, the ''[[White Collar]]'' episode "Front Man" has Neal being coerced to perform a series of tasks for a gangster, who threatens to kill his hostage (a young girl) if he refuses. While doing the first task, he is told that if he doesn't get the required information from a female travel agent in a certain amount of time, a sniper will kill her (the travel agent). You can even see a red dot appear on her head and clothing occasionally, reminding Neal of his deadline.

* Toward the end of Season 7 of ''[[24]]'', {{spoiler|Tony Almeida}} and his men break into a Muslim illegal immigrant's apartment, take his brother hostage, and tell him to do as he says if he wants his brother to live.

* A non-villainous example occurred on ''[[The Mentalist]]'': the new boss, in an attempt to get Jane to at least think a bit more before he acted like a complete jerkass, informed him that if he screwed up, nothing would be done to him; ''Lisbon'' would be canned instead. For once Jane is rendered completely speechless.

* After [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Teal'c]] betrays his god Apophis in the pilot episode of ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' to help humans, he finds out that his wife and son were exiled from their home (which was burned and branded with the symbol for "shol'va" - traitor). They are forced to live on the outskirts of the village as untouchables. When his son reaches the age of joining, Teal'c wife has to beg the priests to allow Rya'c to undergo the ritual. It took her to finally divorce Teal'c and marry a friend of his in order to wash away his "shame".

* In ''[[Metal Wolf Chaos]]'', people Richard find to be Metal Wolf sympathizers are killed along with their family members within four separations, their old classmates AND their friends and coworkers. Kevin Bacon is understandably concerned.

* In ''[[Red Dead Redemption]]'' this becomes John Marston's primary motivator after his wife and son are kidnapped.

** Similarly, in the sequel, Maya gets kidnapped by {{spoiler|Shelly de Killer}} in order to force Phoenix to get Matt Engarde a "Not Guilty" verdict, when Engarde was really guilty. {{spoiler|Well, he didn't actually kill Juan Corrida, but he did create the circumstances leading to Corrida's death.}} The player may either get Engarde acquitted, in which case an innocent woman is found guilty and executed, or get Engarde declared guilty, in which case Maya is killed. The only way out is to [[Take a Third Option]] and {{spoiler|Get de Killer to betray Engarde.}}

* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]: Wrath of the Lich King'' you find letters after killing mage-hunter captains of races on your faction (a human and a troll, respectively), reading the letters becomes a very poignant [[Player Punch]] when it says that they've been forced to work for the blue flight under threat of their family's death.

== [[Web Animation]] ==

* Girem6 in ''[[Smashtasm]]'' does this a lot to [[Those Two Bad Guys|Grant and Gront]], as noted in this exchange:

'''Girem6:''' Because I blame your friend for that comment. }}

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* The Nazis often threatened to kill not only those who tried to resist them, but also their entire families if they tried to defect. This included anyone found harbouring Jews in their homes. Erwin Rommel killed himself specifically to avoid this fate after he was found to be complicit in the plot to kill Hitler.

* A story making the rounds in the US intelligence community is about some Chinese exchange students in Soviet Russia, involved in a prank gone wrong. They were arrested, and interrogated by the KGB. The interrogation lasted for hours, and the KGB could get nothing. Finally, they contacted the Chinese Embassy for assistance. A Chinese agent walked into the room, said something to the students, and left. Afterward, the students confessed everything, received whatever punishment was due them, and were sent back to China. Later, the KGB agents wanted to know what the Chinese agent had said to get the students to cooperate. A Chinese translator translated as follows: {{spoiler|You will tell the Russians what they want to know. In exchange, you will be killed. If you do not tell the Russians what they want to know, you will still be killed. In addition, your villages will be massacred.}}

* This is often done in Marine Corps basic training. When one person messes up, the instructors prefer to start with just the offender, but if mistakes continue or they want to make a point, then they get the next guy as well or the whole damn platoon. If the instructors actively dislike you and want you out, then they start punishing the whole platoon ''except'' you. When the other recruits are your only support, and the instructors make all of them resent you... either you better be exceptionally mentally tough, or you're quitting (yes, you actually can quit, it's just very hard to unless they really don't want you). The ''[[Full Metal Jacket]]'' example above is a particularly nasty case of this.

[[Category:Violence Tropes]]

[[Category:Friendship Tropes]]

[[Category:Crime and Punishment Tropes]]

[[Category:Index Failure]]