Shut Up and Save Me

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Alice is in danger. Her friend or ally Bob is nearby, but instead of helping her, Bob chooses this moment to go into monologue mode. In some cases, Bob just hasn't noticed that Alice is in trouble; in others, he notices but feels the need to get his two cents in before he saves her. In either case, Bob may be ranting about how he can't turn his back for a minute without Alice being attacked by monsters.

Examples of Shut Up and Save Me include:

Anime and Manga

  • Inverted hilariously in Bleach, Ichigo basically tells Rukia "Shut up and let me save you."
    • In Beelzebub, Oga does pretty much the exact same thing.
  • The hentai anime Dragon Knight has a scene in which The Dragon has tied the beautiful queen to her throne and ripped most of her clothing away. Anti-Hero Takeru was supposed to be elsewhere, but got teleported into the throne room just then. He exchanges some wisecracks with the bad guy, and the queen (naked, remember) gets impatient. "Will you stop talking and do something? I'm blushing to the tip of my toes!" Takeru leans over to look past the villain, checking her out, and says, "So I see."

Film

  • In Monsters, Inc.., Sully is being throttled by Randall when Mike shows up. Since Randall is invisible, Mike doesn't notice at first that Sully in trouble, and he keeps talking for a minute or two before he notices that Sully's not being very attentive.
    • And then Mike gets mad and throws a snowball at him, hitting Randall in the face by mistake (showing Sully where Randall's head is).
  • Occurred after the climax in the I Robot movie.
    • Downplayed. There was no immediate danger, Spooner was just kind of stuck.
  • Happens in Hancock, with the title character being overly careful and political correct with a wounded police woman.
  • Licence to Kill: The Dragon is holding James Bond at the end of a Conveyor Belt O' Doom over a cocaine grinder. Pam, the Action Girl turns up in time to shoot the Dragon (and he happens to drop into the grinder), saving Bond. This leads to this classic exchange:

Pam: Are you okay?
Bond: TURN THE BLOODY MACHINE OFF!!

Literature

  • The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn and Eowyn in "The Houses of Healing". Particularly infuriating as he's monologuing about all the additional names he's going to have once he's king.

Live-Action TV

  • The Doctor and Rose in the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who. The Doctor is being attacked by a plastic hand. Rose continues talking to him while she's in the kitchen, and even when she walks into the room she initially thinks he's mucking about.
    • Or there's the time in "The Runaway Bride" when he's listening at a door and talking to at Donna and completely fails to notice the fact that she's been kidnapped by mooks for about half a minute.
    • Amusingly, he notices mid-sentence, commenting as he turns around "and you have never been so quiet."
  • This exchange in the Firefly episode "War Stories":

(Mal is fighting Niska after being tortured; Jayne prepares to shoot Niska)
Zoe: Jayne, this is something the Captain has to do on his own.
Mal: No! No, it's not!
Zoe: Oh. (Zoe, Jayne, and Wash kill Niska)

Video Games

  • A scene in Broken Sword 2 has you find Nico tied to a chair. You can untie the rope or talk to her, but if you spend too long talking she gets a little annoyed...
  • Similarly, Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal lets the player ask Guybrush's wife Elaine how her day has been and if she needs anything to eat... while she's tied up on the deck of a zombie demon ghost pirate's ship.
  • A variation from Transformers: War for Cybertron—they aren't exactly dawdling, but the squad releasing Air Raid from his prison are encountering delays.

Air Raid: You know, it was a lot quicker when I rescued you!
Sideswipe: Can it, Air Raid; we're workin‍'‍ here!

Web Comics

  • The trope name comes from the Dominic Deegan strip seen here, where the exact quote is, "Will you shut up and help me?!"

Web Original

  • In Red vs. Blue, Grif is suspended from a cliff by a gun he jammed into the side of the wall, and Simmons and Sarge are arguing over whether to check that he's alive:

Grif: Oh just shut up and pull me up! I can't hold on forever!

Western Animation

Aang: Hey, you did the Water Whip!
Katara: I couldn't have done it without your help!
Sokka: (being restrained by three pirates) Will you two quit congratulating each other and help me out?!!

  • In Drawn Together, sort of, in Xandir's coming-out episode.
  • An episode of Batman: The Brave And The Bold has Robin taking advantage of the fact Batman is tied up to a giant loom to rant to him about treating him like a kid. Batman, being Batman, frees himself while Robin gets distracted telling him off.
  • In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, Rainbow Dash does this whenever she's going to save someone in "The Mysterious Mare Do Well". At one point a hapless tourist pony in a runaway cart interrupts her Catch Phrase and asks politely if she could save them first.


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