Pity the Kidnapper: Difference between revisions
→Comic Books: Added example
Goo Monster (talk | contribs) |
(→Comic Books: Added example) |
||
| (9 intermediate revisions by 7 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:wonderella failed kidnapping 2821.png|link=The Non-Adventures of Wonderella|
{{quote|''"Frail? You? Serra, you have no need of any escort to protect you. Even the most hardened criminal would flee in terror after five minutes in your company."''
|'''Erk''', '''''[[Fire Emblem]]'''''}}
The single most powerful deterrent to kidnapping in nearly all fiction, and certainly in the mundane category, is to kidnap someone so annoying that it requires an active force of will to keep from being driven insane. What makes them annoying isn't really all that important. In truly bizarre cases, the kidnappers can be annoyed because their victim insists on being [[The Messiah|kind, upbeat, and forgiving]] even through torture. The point is, nobody really wants to be around them. And that ransom note looks increasingly unimportant as compared to the promise of not having to deal with the [[Anthropomorphic Personification]] of "damned pest" day in and day out.
Line 15 ⟶ 16:
Not to be confused with [[Stockholm Syndrome]], in which it is the kidnappee who develops pity/amicability with the kidnapper.
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==▼
▲== Anime and Manga ==
* In ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'', Germany, America, England, and France have ALL, on separate occasions, tried to hold Italy prisoner. It never works out.
** One time, Germany shipped Italy home in a box. The Allies shipped Italy back to Germany ''twice'', once after America captured him (although they were willing to keep him like a dog until he insulted [[Lethal Chef|England's cooking]], at which point America immediately decided not to keep him), then again after France captured him. Both times, the box had 'FUCK' written on it, in big, bold letters.
Line 25 ⟶ 24:
* In ''[[Zoids: New Century Zero]]'', Polta and the Backdraft Group have kidnapped Leena. While he calmly attempts to negotiate, Leena can be heard in the background shouting down her kidnappers and harassing them. Polta stops talking twice, once to order them to restrain her and another after asking "excuse me a minute", when she threw something that hit him in the face. He leaves the video call to stop her, and returns visibly beaten and disheveled, but successful at least.
== [[Comic Books]] ==▼
▲== Comic Books ==
* The [[Marvel Universe]] robot character Machine Man (Aaron Stack) was nudged toward sentience by the alien Celestials at his creation. Years later, they abducted him and took him into space. They then returned him to Earth with little explanation for their actions. Suffering from self-esteem issues, Aaron claims they returned him because they thought he was boring and obnoxious.
** A flashback in ''[[Nextwave]]'' (which [[Unreliable Narrator|may or may not be real]]) has the Celestials telling Aaron that he's a loser. Complete with L on the forehead. And they mock him further when he [[Wangst]]s about it.
Line 32 ⟶ 30:
'''Aaron:''' ...What?
'''Celestial:''' No. Really. You're ☠☠☠☠. We've taken a year of you. We're taking you back to that orbiting trashcan you call a planet. And dumping you there. You're turning away from us. We are speaking to you and you're turning away from us. This is exactly the kind of ☠☠☠☠ we're taking about here. }}
* In the [[DCU]], ''[[Lobo]]'', Karnevil, Harley Quinn, and [[The Joker]] have all been kicked out of hell at one point or another. Lobo for throwing wild parties and causing massive damage to demons and property, Karnevil for annoying/freaking out the demons by constantly pointing out better torture methods, Harley for being ''too helpful'' to the demonic security (despite them trying to restrain her) and annoying them to no end, and the Joker for, well being the Joker.
* Features in a ''[[Judge Dredd]]'' story, where a criminal kidnaps a woman for ransom after she frees him in the mistaken belief that [[Society Is to Blame]]. Of course, she's so saccharinely annoying that he's soon begging to be taken to prison just to get away from her.
* In ''[[Asterix|Asterix the Gladiator]]'', Cacofonix is captured by a Roman prefect to give to Caesar as a gift. The suffering of the kidnappers only increases on their journey as they spend more and more time with Cacofonix's singing.
* There has been at least one [[Batman]] story wherein Alfred is kidnapped by thugs with ambitions towards the Wayne trust fund. Unfortunately for them, Alfred is generally portrayed as a [[Retired Badass]] with shades of [[Battle Butler]].
== [[Film]] -- Live Action ==▼
* In [["Weird Al" Yankovic]]'s movie ''[[UHF (film)|UHF]]'' janitor/uber-popular children's show host Stanley Spadowski drives his Mafia captors crazy with his inane guessing games and loud rendition of the theme from ''[[Bonanza]]''▼
▲== Film -- Live Action ==
* Even the ''[[Dennis the Menace
▲* In [[Weird Al]]'s movie ''[[UHF]]'' janitor/uber-popular children's show host Stanley Spadowski drives his Mafia captors crazy with his inane guessing games and loud rendition of the theme from ''[[Bonanza]]''
▲* Even the ''[[Dennis the Menace US|Dennis the Menace]]'' movie did this when Dennis was kidnapped.
* The main character in ''[[High Strung]]'' spends most of the film complaining about whatever is within his view (it's not exactly great cinema). At the end, he is dragged away by Death (played by [[Jim Carrey]]), who eventually lets him go because he complains so much.
* ''[[No Deposit, No Return]]''—again, the kidnapees are child terrors.
* ''[[Ruthless People]]'' is all about this trope (and [[You Can Keep Her]] too).
* ''[[Baby's Day Out]]'' has three bumbling kidnappers [[Badly-Battered Babysitter|completely unable to keep one baby
* French movie ''Le Grand Chef'' is an adaptation of ''The Ransom of Red Chief''. You do the math.
== [[Literature]] ==▼
* In what may be the Ur-example, O. Henry's [https://web.archive.org/web/20131104120728/http://www.literaturecollection.com/a/o_henry/3/ ''The Ransom of Red Chief''], the titular "Red Chief" (what the kid calls himself during a game of [[Cowboys and Indians]]) is so bad, that the ''kidnappers'' had to pay a ransom to his father to take him back!▼
▲== Literature ==
▲* In what may be the Ur-example, O. Henry's [http://www.literaturecollection.com/a/o_henry/3/ ''The Ransom of Red Chief''], the titular "Red Chief" (what the kid calls himself during a game of [[Cowboys and Indians]]) is so bad, that the ''kidnappers'' had to pay a ransom to his father to take him back!
* The short story "A Good Boy" by Desmond Warzel references "The Ransom of Red Chief" by name. The titular boy turns out to be a lot more than just an annoyance, though...
* [[Saki (author)|Saki]]'s ''The Disappearance of Crispina Umberleigh'' inverts this trope by having the kidnap victim be odious enough that the kidnappers successfully extract eight years' worth of ransom from her family by threatening to ''return her.'' {{spoiler|Even though, as it turns out, they don't actually have her.}}
* [[Terry Pratchett]]'s Nac Mac Feegle, a race of belligerent, six-inch tall, red-haired, kilt-wearing blue men (also known as pictsies) were rumoured to have been thrown out of Fairyland for being drunk and disorderly. This trope is even more perfectly exemplified in ''[[
** Also, there's a wonderfully cool scene in ''[[
{{quote|'''Oates:''' Aren't you going to stop her? There are ''monsters'' in that forest!
'''Villagers:''' So why should we care what happens to a bunch of monsters? That's Granny Weatherwax, that is. }}
** In ''[[Feet of Clay (novel)|Feet of Clay]]'', [[Mugging the Monster|a gang takes Angua hostage]]. Their injuries are reported as [[Too Dumb to Live|"self-inflicted"]].
* The now-out-of-print children's picture book ''[[The Baron's Booty]]'' is about a [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain|nefarious but soft-hearted]] [[Aristocrats Are Evil|Wicked Baron]] who kidnaps a nobleman's dozen-or-so young daughters while gloating in rhyme about the ransom he plans to demand for them. The children turn out to be cute, but demanding, and the kind-hearted baron is worn down trying to keep them happy. To his shock, the girls' father declares that he is rather enjoying his break from them and sees no reason to take them all back. The baron ends up bankrupting himself bribing the father to let him return the kids.
* In Simon Green's ''Blue Moon Rising'', Prince Rupert arrives at a dragons lair only to find a dragon who desperately wants rid of an aggressive, tomboyish, ''loud'' princess who was sent to it to die. When asked later {{spoiler|why the dragon is helping them}}, Rupert answers that he rescued it from a princess.
Line 65 ⟶ 61:
* In ''[[Animorphs]]'' one Yeerk is practically driven ''insane'' by his own host. Said host constantly recited ''[[Henry V]]'', so when the yeerk finds the [[Time Travel|Time Matrix]] the first thing he does with it is kill the inspiration for that play, just to silence him.
* In the ''[[Narnia]]'' book ''Voyage of the Dawn Treader'', Eustace is such a miserable person to be around that the slave-dealers who kidnap the crew cannot sell him and try, without success, to give him away for free.
*
* In [[P. G.
{{quote|''By Jove, you know, till I started to tramp the place with this infernal kid, I never had a notion it would have been so deuced difficult to restore a child to its anxious parents. It's a mystery to me how kidnappers ever get caught.''}}
* ''Snatch'' by Rennie Airth, published in 1969, is about kidnapping the infant son of a millionaire. Alas, not only is the baby an unpleasant handful, but as a tactic to delay the realization that he'd been abducted, the kidnappers substituted an orphan they'd picked up. The unscrupulous tycoon feels the cheerful little orphan is a '''much''' more satisfying son than his actual offspring, so [[You Can Keep Her|he has no intention of paying the hapless crooks '''anything''']].
▲== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[Angel]]'' combines this one with [[Enfante Terrible]]: after discovering a young boy is [[Demonic Possession|possessed by a demon]], Angel Investigations exorcises it and then tracks its physical form down to kill it... a fate the demon welcomes, as the little boy was so evil by himself that the demon found himself trapped in a [[Happy Place|hellish mindscape]] for years.
* In ''[[
** A few seasons later, Major Winchester hires a North Korean spy as a houseboy. In one of his last communications to his people, the spy replies "And in regard to kidnapping Major Winchester for questioning, forget it. He is one big jerk."
* On ''[[True Blood]]'', Bill is forced to turn a terrified Christian woman as punishment for protecting Sookie. It is implied that the vampires think this will be agonizing torture to the girl, but as soon as she realizes that she's no longer under her father's thumb, she becomes insufferable. Bill and Eric pass her back and forth to get rid of her.
Line 78 ⟶ 74:
{{quote|'''Maxwell:''' (paraphrased) Ms. Fine, the bank robber drove off with your mother as a hostage!
'''Fran:''' Oh that poor man! }}
* ''[[Fantasy Island]]'' had a episode with a B-plot that involved two kidnappers trying to ransom Tattoo. He and Mr. Roarke are both quite familiar with the "Red Chief" story, referred to above, and Tattoo is roughly child-sized...
* ''[[Weeds]]'': Celia Hodes is kidnapped by her daughter and her boyfriend the rebel leader. They intend to ransom her, but no one is interested. They then plan to sell off her organs for cash, but find out she's had chemotherapy so no one will want them. Celia then "makes herself useful" e.g. by organizing the rebels' firearms, but manages to provoke a fight between her daughter and the rebel leader, breaking up their relationship. The daughter leaves, and the rebel leader lets Celia go.
== [[Music]] ==▼
▲== Music ==
* The old Irish song "Killieburne Brae" is about a shrewish woman who is dragged off to hell, terrorizes the demons there in all kinds of colourful ways, and is eventually sent back to her poor husband, with the moral that "women are worse than the men/when they go down to hell they are truant again."
** "Scolding Wife" doesn't go so far, but does include the line:
Line 90 ⟶ 85:
{{quote|"Now I've been a devil for most o' me life, but I ne'er was in Hell 'til I met with your wife."}}
== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==▼
▲== Newspaper Comics ==
* One ''[[Piranha Club]]'' story arc had [[Badass Grandma|Mother]] [[When Elders Attack|Packer]] being kidnapped. [[Hilarity Ensues|Much asskicking ensued]].
*
{{quote|'''Red Rascal:''' ...Friday. Gettin' down on Friday! Everybody's lookin' forward to the weekend!
'''Terrorist 1:''' Aggg...
'''Terrorist 2:''' No! No more! }}
* One ''[[Nodwick]]'' comic strip from ''[[Dragon (magazine)|Dragon]]'' magazine has the crew on a mission [http://comic.nodwick.com/?comic=2001-02-02-2 to rescue a purloined princess] greeted at a volcano cave by a dragon, with great relief. He's sick and tired of the nagging princess he's kidnapped, who keeps insisting he do things like "put the seat down"... on the volcano.
== [[Radio]] ==▼
▲== Radio ==
* Happened more than once with [[Cloudcuckoolander|Sub-Lieutenant]] [[Captain Crash|Phillips]] in ''[[The Navy Lark]]''.
== [[Theatre]] ==
* The play ''Bones'' by Peter Straughen is made of this trope - although in a fun variant, instead of being annoying, the
==
▲* The play ''Bones'' by Peter Straughen is made of this trope - although in a fun variant, instead of being annoying, the 'kidnappee' ([[London Gangster|Reg Kray]]) is just a dangerous, badass gangster, and something of a [[Magnificent Bastard]] who soon has his kidnappers either terrified or practically in love with him.
* In a comical skit in ''[[Tales of Destiny]] 2'', Nanaly Fletch imagines herself being a [[Damsel in Distress]]. Then Loni Dunamis offers to be her [[Knight in Shining Armor]]... because he pities any villains that kidnaps Nanaly for her tomboy-ness. Cue to the [[Knuckle-Cracking|bonecrusher]].
* Used in ''[[Serious Sam]] 2'', where the literal dragon, after kidnapping the hilariously ugly princess, decided to surrender her to Sam without a fight; he refuses, and they fight over who has to take her. Sam wins and agrees to take her if he can also take the magic artifact he was after.
Line 114 ⟶ 105:
* In a bit of background conversation in ''[[Diablo III]]'', an old soldier and his wife reminisce about the time she was kidnapped by barbarians, and the soldier describes how he was beside himself until they brought her back with an apology. His wife comments that their leader still sends her a bundle of hides every year.
== [[Web Comics]] ==▼
▲== Web Comics ==
* Done [http://www.ansemretort.org/ansemretort/index.html?comic=567 here] in ''[[Ansem Retort]]''.
* {{spoiler|Charlotte}} in ''[[Penny and Aggie]]'' is pitiful enough when {{spoiler|she}} kidnaps Cyndi as {{spoiler|a reflection of her self-hatred and hatred for her abusive mother}}. Then Cyndi {{spoiler|talks her into slitting her own throat}}.
* In ''[[The Non-Adventures of Wonderella]]'' the protagonist tend to have this effect on supervillains, as the page image shows (though Hitlerella always comes back for more [[Foe Yay|for some reason]]). "[http://nonadventures.com/2012/10/06/view-to-a-dill/ Welcome to the club, my friend]".
* In ''Please Forgive Me!!!'' kidnapper was [http://gobolatula.com/pfm/comic/special-2-charlotte-of-the-opera-by-grail-gob/ asking for it]. "Well, you're un-kidnapped. Sorry."
== [[Web Original]] ==
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6IeASZZf1c Both] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_h9isVGcE8 times] that [[The Annoying Orange]] got kidnapped by [[Saw|Jigsaw]].
* Jaune deliberately tries to annoy Cinder when she kidnaps him and Ren in Season 3, episode 1 of ''[[RWBY Chibi]]. It works.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In ''[[Animaniacs]]'', Yakko and Dot challenge [[The Grim Reaper]] at checkers to bring Wakko back to life, with their lives at stake. They lose—but then [[The Grim Reaper]] realizes he'll have to host the three loons in the underworld for all eternity, and he lets them go. In other episodes, they get [[Dracula]] and [[Satan]] to let them go for the same reason. They subvert their own pattern in a later episode, as this ''fails'' to work on an [[Drill Sergeant Nasty|Army drill sergeant]]; he just assigns them to worse duties. {{spoiler|That is, until he can finally stand it no longer and becomes a camp counsellor.}}
** One episode features something [[Tastes Like Diabetes|so horrible]], even the Warner siblings can't deal with it: [[Captain Ersatz|Baloney]] [[Barney and Friends|Barney the Dinosaur]]. Even dropping multiple anvils on him only gains them a temporary respite.
* At the end of the [[Looney Tunes]] short "The Whole Idea", an inventor finally tires of his stereotypically shrewish wife's nagging and drops her down one of the "portable holes" he'd invented. It apparently leads all the way to [[Fire and Brimstone Hell]], as there's a burst of flame and then a mopey-looking demon appears, hauling her out by the collar of her blouse and asking the inventor, "Isn't it bad enough down here without ''her''?"
* ''[[The Boondocks]]'' had this happen twice in the episode "Let's Nab Oprah". In an attempt to kidnap Oprah from a book signing, the bumbling duo Gin Rummy and Ed Wuncler III accidentally kidnap Maya Angelou. They have to dump her out of the van after she starts repeatedly kicking Gin Rummy. The two try again by breaking into Oprah's studio, but they end up going into [[Bill Cosby]]'s dressing room instead. They decide to cut their losses and just kidnap ''him'', but he's so annoying they have to let him go fifteen minutes later.
* Subverted in an episode of ''[[Extreme Dinosaurs]]''. A scientist allows himself to become the hostage of the evil Raptors, but not before hinting his plan to the heroes by making reference to [https://web.archive.org/web/20131104120728/http://www.literaturecollection.com/a/o_henry/3/ "The Ransom of Red Chief"]. Unfortunately, his plan backfires and he instead learns a valuable lesson.
* In the ''[[Bugs Bunny/Characters|Bugs Bunny]]'' cartoon ''[[wikipedia:Bugs and Thugs|Bugs and Thugs]]'', Bugs is kidnapped by a pair of gangsters. He drives them so crazy that when the police arrive, the criminals beg the cops to arrest them to get them away from him.
** The same gag is used in the earlier "Racketeer Rabbit".
*** Locking the baddies in a stove, ''turning the gas on'', and then throwing a match in to explode it is really a whole new level of "driving crazy".
Line 147 ⟶ 138:
* The ''[[Filmation's Ghostbusters]]'' episode "The Ransom Of Eddie Spencer" has [[Big Bad|Prime Evil]] kidnapping such a screw-up that he manages to wreck Prime Evil's lair.
* ''[[My Little Pony and Friends]]'', "The Great Rainbow Caper": Danny and Surprise are held for ransom by the Gizmonks, two [[Mad Scientist]] monkeys who want to get their paws on the Rainbow of Light so they can study it. Danny manages to flatter the Gizmonks into letting them out of their cage, then he and Surprise proceed to screw with their inventions, free their test animals, and generally make a mess of the Gizmonks' lab. The episode ends with the Gizmonks fleeing their ruined lab and begging Megan to take the hostages back.
* ''[[My Little Pony:
* A ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'' short revolved around [[Mad Scientist|Dr. Scientist]] snatching up Cerbee and trying to experiment on him. However, he quickly proved to be so energetic the doc couldn't handle him.
* ''[[Family Guy]]'': Burglars break into the Griffin house and take Meg hostage. By the time the family is rescued, Meg has been charged with sex crimes against the burglars.
* In an episode of ''[[She-Ra:
* A recurring plot in ''[[The Dreamstone]]'' involved Amberley getting kidnapped by the Urpneys, and spending the entire duration of her capture [[Bratty Half-Pint|verbally]] and [[Cute Bruiser|physically]] thrashing them. In the pilot, Zordrak has to [[Taken for Granite|turn her into stone]] just to keep her quiet.
* [[Dastardly Whiplash|Dan Backslide]] from the [[Chuck Jones]]-directed [[Merrie Melodies]] short ''[[The Dover Boys]]'' manages to lock Dora in his shack, but every time he attempts to approach her from here, she violently lobs him into the opposite wall... [[Damsel Fight-and-Flight Response|All while she's banging on the door calling to be rescued by Tom, Dick and Larry.]] Eventually, after she escapes on her own, it's ''Dan'' who crying for them to save him.
Line 156 ⟶ 147:
* In ''[[The Swan Princess]]'' sequel, the villain, an [[Evil Sorcerer]], kidnaps Queen Uberta, who manages to redecorate the dungeon, get good food and get the sorcerer's minion confused enough to follow ''her'' orders instead of the sorcerer's. She also keeps complaining about how it's her birthday. She doesn't even stop when the sorcerer turns her into a bunch of different animals.
== [[Real Life]] ==▼
▲== Real Life ==
* A surprising number of people who were kidnapped by organ harvesters in Brazil have been released voluntarily by their kidnappers unharmed. At least once, it was because the woman kidnapped screamed so loud for so long that the guard forcibly threw her out.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:I Have Your Index]]
[[Category:Index Backfire]]
[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]
[[Category:
| |||