Sadistic Choice/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Both choices given have negative consequences.

  • Straight: Draco kidnaps Alice and Carol, and gave their love interest Bob a choice of saving one, while he kills the other.
  • Exaggerated: Draco is holding everyone Bob holds dear at ransom, as well as the entire world. Bob can only save one.
  • Downplayed: Draco holds Alice ransom, and plans to kill her unless they arrange for his escape. Bob must either let Draco get away scot-free, or let Alice die.
  • Justified: Draco wants to hit Bob where it REALLY hurts.
  • Inverted: Draco gave Bob pizza and vanilla-flavored ice-cream, both his favorite food. Bob was given a choice to eat one of them first.
  • Subverted: Draco purports to have captured Alice and Carol. Bob gets there only to find that they have freed themselves.
  • Double Subverted: ...only to be kidnapped again.
  • Parodied: Draco got hold of a fire-truck toy and a spinning top, and gave their owner Bob a choice of 'saving' one, while he puts the other in a toy box.
  • Zig Zagged: Draco routinely takes hostages. Sometimes he takes one, sometimes multiple. Sometimes hostages escape, and sometimes their freedom has to be negotiated.
  • Averted: Bob does not have to make a choice of such magnitude.
  • Enforced: ???
  • Lampshaded: ???
  • Invoked: Knowing about Bob's 2-love interests, Draco kidnaps Alice and Carol first.
  • Exploited: This leads Bob into a Heroic BSOD, making his defeat easier.
  • Defied: Bob broke off his relationships to prevent them from getting into danger.
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???

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