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Poison and Cure Gambit: Difference between revisions

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== [[Comic Books]] ==
* In the ''[[The Punisher|Punisher MAX]]'' storyline "6 Hours to Kill", Frank is blackmailed with a cure to assassinate someone. He instead decides to take down as many criminals as possible before dying.
* German comic ''[[Fix Und Foxi (Comic Book)|Fix Undund Foxi]]'' had the (mostly) [[Lovable Rogue]] Lupo pull this off once. First, he let loose a lot of moths and sold people a spray against them. From said spray, people got an allergic reaction and had to sneeze all the time. He sold them a cure - which made people unbelievable thirsty. Fortunately he sold them a special lemonade which would cure their thirst - but totally mess up their hair. Then he sold them wigs. Which were badly made, with the hair falling out. Then finally, they got it. Cue the mob.
* A heroic trickster variation. In an issue of [[Marvel Star Wars]], Luke told an imperial officer he had poisoned him, and would give him the antidote once he gave Luke access to computer records. Feeling stomach pains, the officer complied, and then Chewbacca knocked him out. Turns out Luke only put soap flakes in the officer's soup.
 
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* ...and ditto the second ''[[Tomb Raider]]'' movie.
* ''[[V for Vendetta]]'': The head of the local government gets to his position by spreading a plague through the area, blaming it on enemies, and then, once "elected", distributes a cure through a medical company he has stock in.
* [[Indiana Jones and Thethe Temple of Doom|"And now doctor Jones, you give me the diamond."]]
* In ''[[Escape From LAL.A.]]'', Snake is infected with the Plutoxin 7 virus, which will kill him in 10 hours unless he gets the President's daughter and the [[EMP]] satellite control device she stole. Subverted in that {{spoiler|at the end, it's revealed that "Plutoxin 7" is merely a fast-acting, hard-hitting case of... the flu}}.
 
 
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* In [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]'s ''[[Vorkosigan Saga|Vorkosigan]]'' series, Baron Fell of Jackson's Whole has this as the basis of most of his business, selling both traditional military weaponry and their defenses, as well as manufacturing chemical and biological weapons along with their cures.
* A variation occurs in John Collier's famous story ''The Chaser'': [[The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday]] sells a [[Love Potion]] for a pittance which the owner strongly implies will turn the main character's beloved into a [[Love Freak]]. The antidote in this case is the "chaser" of the title, which is some sort of poison to "solve" that problem.
* Thomas of Magnus, the ''hero'' of Sigmund Brouwer's ''Wings of Dawn'', uses this -- the price of being given regular doses of antidote is continued cooperation from the [[Ancient Conspiracy|agents]] pursuing him, all of whom claim to be with the good guys and want him to join them. {{spoiler|In reality, this is a [[Batman Gambit]] to weed out which side is lying; Knowing that the villains have [[Combat Pragmatist|fewer compunctions about fighting dirty]] and [[Out-Gambitted|think they're smarter than he is]], Thomas is slipping non-lethal doses into every meal and providing them with flavored water as the "antidote". When he "inadvertently" allows them enough information to determine the recipe of the supposed antidote, the villain works it out and seizes the opportunity to... [[Hoist Byby His Own Petard|poison himself]]. OOPS}}.
* In ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', Harry pulls a unique subversion by poisoning HIMSELF so that he can strong-arm a faerie with an interest in his survival into cooperating with his plan.
* In ''[[The Inheritance Cycle]]'' this gambit is used to ensure that Arya couldn't escape prison, as only her captors had the antidote.
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* In William Gibson's ''[[Neuromancer]]'', protagonist Henry Case is controlled by his employer via sacs of poison placed into his blood vessels.
* The villainous corporation in ''Confessions of Super-Mom'' makes both insulin and cereal, and deliberately uses the cereal to give children diabetes.
* In ''[[Best Served Cold (Literaturenovel)|Best Served Cold]]'' by Joe Abercrombie, master poisoner Castor Morveer and his apprentice Day use this a number of times. In some instances the trope is played straight, while in other cases there was actually no poison at all; in one of ''those'' cases, the proffered antidote is actually the real poison.
* [[Epic Fail|Fails epically]] in the first book of David Weber's ''[[Prince Roger]]'' series. Roger and his Marines are poisoned and ordered to fight for a tin-pot dictator with this gambit... which backfires amazingly because [[Bizarre Alien Biology|they're from a totally different planet]].
* [[Barbara Hambly (Creator)|Barbara Hambly]]'s [[Literature/Sun Wolf And Starhawk|Sun Wolf And Starhawk]] novel ''The Ladies of Mandrigyn'' pulls a particularly delicious version of this gambit: at the beginning of the book, a poisoner slips Sun Wolf a particularly dreadful poison and daily casts spells keeping it from affecting him, but will not remove it from his system until he's completed a task. Much later, {{spoiler|he decides dying horribly is better than the alternatives, and escapes to crawl off and suffer the effects of the poison... which turn out to be the lost shamanic initiation everyone's been searching for the whole book. It's just better known as a poison, because it IS torturous and only a few are equipped to survive it.}}
 
 
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'''Trader''': Interesting, what kind of explosives? *Takes a sip of wine*<br />
'''River''': The kind I just put in your wine. }}
* The Doctor does this to a corrupt and compassionless [[Jerkass]] hospital administrator on an episode of ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]''.
* Elizabeth does this to get Jim out of prison in the season finale of [[Terra Nova (TV)|Terra Nova]]. {{spoiler|She was bluffing. The "cure" she injected was a sedative.}}
 
 
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* In the ''[[Magic: theThe Gathering]]'' novel ''[[Magic: theThe Gathering (Tabletop Game)/Agents of Artifice|Agents of Artifice]]'', Gemreth's demon injects Jace with a painful venom before it interrogates him, promising the antidote if he passes the test.
 
 
== [[Video Games]] ==
* Used on a global scale in ''[[Deus Ex (Video Game)|Deus Ex]]'', with the synthetic disease "The Gray Death" (and very expensive vaccine "Ambrosia").
* The original ''[[BaldursBaldur's Gate]]'' had a side-quest where you were poisoned by an assassin, so you'd die in 10 days if his partner in crime weren't ready to help you... for a price {{spoiler|of removing the geas his "partner" put on him to make him cooperate}}.
* [[Mega Man (Videovideo Gamegame)|Hello, Roboenza]].
* Eidolons of ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'' start out by casting Doom on your party leader, leaving you with a time limit to defeat them. If you beat them, though, you get a fancy new summon!
 
 
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In one episode of ''[[Batman: theThe Animated Series]]'', the Scarecrow releases a chemical which takes away all sensation of fear, making people dangerously reckless, with the plan of selling his fear toxin as the "antidote".
** And in an earlier one, [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] Roland Dagget has stray animals infected with an incredibly virulent new strain of rabies that he plans to sell the cure for.
* In ''[[Jackie Chan Adventures (Animation)|Jackie Chan Adventures]]'', Valmont infects Jackie with a poison that will [[Taken for Granite|turn him into stone]], offering the antidote in exchange for all of the talismans that Jackie had collected thus far. Jade then [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|breaks into what amounts to the an FBI headquarters]] in order to save her uncle. Of course, Jade missed one and Tohru responded by smashing the antidote. [[Good Thing You Can Heal|Good thing the Horse Talisman grants you healing powers]]...
* One episode of ''[[Gargoyles]]'' double subverts this. Demona tries to pull a deal of this kind by shooting Elisa with a poisoned dart and coercing the gargoyles to help her, but unbeknownst to her [[Pocket Protector|Elisa's badge deflected the dart]]. The Gargoyles spring the trap anyway, out of curiosity, and so Demona will think she succeeded.
** An extra twist comes up in the end, [[I Lied|when Demona gloats that there]] ''[[I Lied|is]]'' [[I Lied|no antidote]] right before she gets away. Thank God for that badge...
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