Talking Your Way Out: Difference between revisions
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One of the heroes has been captured by a group of villains, usually a group with distinct personalities and [[Backstory|backstories]], like a [[Legion of Doom]] or a [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]], who operate on more or less equal terms with each other (as opposed to a singular [[Big Bad]] and a collection of [[Mooks]]).
The hero is well-known to the villains. They are careful not to give him any obvious
How will he escape?
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== [[Fan Fiction]] ==
* At one point in the ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'' AU fic ''[[Luminosity]]'', sensible!Bella, still human, has been kidnapped by [[Starter Villain|the evil vampire James]], who's probably going to kill her because he wants to make Edward suffer. Bella's only chance to survive is to talk James into doing something stupid, and it works: she lies to him, saying that no, Edward doesn't care about her and was going to give her over to [[Big Bad|The Volturi]] because they give out rewards in exchange for humans with special powers. James believes her, and takes her to the Volturi. [[Summon Bigger Fish|They're not too happy with James...]]
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** What makes this a truly interesting case is that the detective was warned beforehand that the Joker would use exactly this tactic on him, and not to fall for it. The problem is that the Joker is just ''that good'' at manipulating people.
** At the beginning of the film, one of the bank robbers realises that their boss has given each of them orders to kill one of the others once [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|their part of the plan is complete]], and tries to talk the last of his fellows around by pointing out that their boss will do the same to him. Unfortunately, the last robber ''is'' [[The Joker|that boss]].
* In ''[[Cars 2]]'', when Mater is surrounded by a pack of [[Mook
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* Played extremely solemly at the end of ''[[Harry Potter|The Half-Blood Prince]]'', when Dumbledore engineers a [[Just Between You and Me]] moment with the (presently much stronger) {{spoiler|Malfoy}}, convincing him in the process that he isn't capable of murder. It works... to a given value of working.
* In [[Poul Anderson]]'s [[Technic History]], Dominic Flandry is an Agent for the Terran Empire. Kidnapped by an alien race, who just assumes he is a decadent worthless low level agent, he soon has the entire leadership of the planet backstabbing each other.
* [[Roger Zelazny]]'s ''Creatures of Light and Darkness'': Set the Destroyer has been taken captive, immobilized, and disarmed by his enemies. Set's gift is the ability to find the weaknesses in his opponents. One of his
* Mercilessly lampshaded in ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'', in which the villain is too ''stupid'' to fall for it.
* ''Next of Kin'' by Eric Frank Russell is the very pinnacle of this trope. John Leeming is the only human being on alien planet (inhabited by stocky reptiles and is a part of union, which is in war with Earth), imprisoned, stripped of all weapons and gadgets, he does not know their language (initially)... and he manages to talk his way out. Moreover - {{spoiler|he manages to make all the government of this planet believe that humans have distinct spiritual companions, he is given a spaceship, he is given the means to change it for a more advanced one and reach Earth... and the planet prepares to leave the anti-Earth union and encourage other planets to do it}}. Such is the power of diplomacy.
* Eli Monpress of [[The Spirit Thief]] basically has this as his
* [[Miles Vorkosigan]] runs on this. Unfortunately, some of his adversaries have grown somewhat Miles savvy. From ''The Vor Game:''
{{quote|'''Admiral Oser''': Space them. ... Use the portside access lock, it's closest. If he, [pointing to Miles] starts to talk, stop his tongue. It's his most dangerous organ.
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