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Talking Your Way Out: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''Talking might make you feel a lot better... and less homicidal...''|'''Rhea Snaketail''', ''[[Slightly Damned]]''}}
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 openings—they disarm him, disable his powers, lock him up, and keep guards on him at all time. Escape by brute force isn't going to work, as he's seriously outnumbered and lacks access to his weapons and abilities. Without resources, [[MacGyvering]] up a solution isn't going to work, either.
How will he escape?
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* ... [[Show Some Leg|sex appeal]] - "You know what I really like? A man in a cage."
* ... and [[Divided We Fall|mutual distrust]] - "You realize he's just going to off the rest of you once he gets what he wants, right?"
... of each individual member.
The villains never stop to think that they're being played for chumps, or wonder if the hero has anything to gain by starting a power struggle. [[Enemy Civil War|The resulting dissension and infighting]] allows the hero to escape in the confusion. Truly, [[The Guards Must Be Crazy]].
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{{quote|I commend your loyalty. It must be difficult to maintain for an officer like Crais... an officer on the edge and out of control. I have unconditional authority on a Gammak Base. Captain Crais ''will'' go to the Chair: to stop that, you'll have to kill me... and all my men. Are you prepared to do that? Do what you know in your hearts is the right thing: put Crais in the Chair.}}
* This was Gabrielle's schtick on [[Xena: Warrior Princess]], at least until [[Executive Meddling|someone in charge]] decided she needed to [[Take a Level In Badass]].
* Ditto for Daniel Jackson on ''[[Stargate SG-1]]''. He even managed to talk himself out of actually ''being dead'' a few times, but hey, that's Daniel for you. In later seasons, he comes to rely on this much less, although still proves capable of giving a great [[Rousing Speech|monologue]] every now and then.
* Reid on ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' tries for one of these at least three or four times a season. They don't always work out, but when they do, the results can be quite spectacular. Perhaps the best example (and a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] to boot) comes in Season Three, when a serial killer on death row invites Reid and Hotch to interview him just before he's executed. He plans to lull them into a false sense of security and then kill them both in order to derail his trial and buy himself some more time alive. Through careful manipulation of the agents, the timing and the situation, he very nearly succeeds. Somehow, Hotch and Reid wind up alone in a locked room, unarmed, with a serial killer whose bare hands were his preferred weapon, who wants them dead, and who isn't wearing handcuffs. It never becomes important. Reid keeps the serial killer talking until the guards return from shift change. Fifteen minutes later. Not that Hotch's plan to kick the guy's ass manually wouldn't have been fun to watch, but...
** It's awesome when it works, but the times when it fails are more interesting, and also generally awful and depressing, because you often really think he's going to pull it off this time...right before someone dies.
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* ''[[Deus Ex: Human Revolution|Deus Ex Human Revolution]]'': "Social" boss fights are all about this. You can talk NPCs into giving you codes, standing down from a hostage situation, or letting you into restricted areas.
* ''[[2027]]'': If you are stopped by the Human Horizon agent in Paris, you can lie to him about your identity, saving your life. Meeting him however, causes {{spoiler|an ambush to be set up for you later after the Paris Lab mission.}}
* ''[[Fallout]]'' is one of the few video games where you can use this against the [[Big Bad]]. In fact, it's possible to talk your way into his stronghold, talk your way up to the boss, convince him of the error in his plan, get him to commit suicide, and [[Load-Bearing Boss|leg it as the base collapses around you]]. Ta da! Saved the world [[Pacifist Run|without firing a shot]].
** ''[[Fallout 2]]'' also lets you foil the Enclave through the gift of gab, though [[The Dragon]] will try to block your [[Load-Bearing Boss|hasty retreat from the base]] no matter how slick you are, forcing a confrontation. You can convince the Enclave [[Mooks]] to fight him for you, though; after all, he's not letting ''them'' leave either.
** In ''[[Fallout 3]]'' you can convince both the [[Big Bad]] and [[The Dragon]] into giving up. {{spoiler|The former by using self-destruct code or by proving that he is not doing the right thing, and the latter after a heated debate where you convince him that his government has no authority to do what it is doing.}}
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* ''[[Geneforge]]'' lets you be a real [[Manipulative Bastard]] about this. Join the [[Big Bad]]'s faction, stroll into his base, convince him that you have repaired the damaged safety equipment that will let him use the [[Applied Phlebotinum|Geneforge]], bluff him into thinking that he needs to send his bodyguards away, laugh as he fries himself. Bonus bastard points if you then use the real safety equipment to successfully use the Geneforge yourself, and even more if you find the item that lets you break the Geneforge so that nobody else can use it.
** Variations on what's described (breaking it after using it, or breaking it without using it) are the only two very good endings in the entire series.
* [[Jade Empire]] The [[Final Boss]] actually tries to use this on YOU. If it works, you let yourself be killed, AND doom the world to a horrible, blighted excistance under a heartlessly brutal, immortal dictator who view people as mere things to use at whim. So DO NOT FALL FOR IT!!!
* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' allows you to put points into Charm and Intimidate skills which allow you to talk (or threaten) your way out of some situations that would otherwise end in bloodshed. Towards the end of the game, sufficient points in these skills will even allow you to {{spoiler|talk down the villain, Saren,}} on two separate occasions, the second resulting in {{spoiler|Saren killing himself}}. It doesn't get you out of a final boss fight, though.
* ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'' does this one almost all the time. Every plot-significant fight bar one can be bypassed, usually through talking; every other fight can be avoided through stealth or running away. This includes the [[Big Bad]], who you can {{spoiler|literally talk out of existence.}}
* You can do this in ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'', but usually it falls under Force Persuade.
* In [[Metal Gear Solid|MGS3]] you can talk the prison guard, {{spoiler|Johnny into showing you a picture of his family. The picture he wrote the cell door code on the back of, lest he forget. }}
* In [[Kingdom of Loathing]] 's 2009 [[You Mean "Xmas"|Crimbo]] ended with your character avoiding death by explaining to the [[The Mafia|Penguin who bought the holiday for completely legitimate purposes]] that his plans to use the magic of Crimbo to steal everyone's money couldn't possibly work: because no matter how much meat they stole, the magic of Crimbo would cause all the money to be [[True Meaning of Christmas|"left on the front step of an orphanage, or some equally sentimental crap"]]. To make matters worse, whoever runs Crimbo [[Blessed with Suck|can't keep anything. Everything he makes must be given to others.]]
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* Batman uses this method to escape the Injustice Gang in the ''[[Justice League]]'' episode "Injustice For All". Features a ''very'' rare instance of the Joker being the voice of reason, as he anticipates Bats's strategy but [[Bond Villain Stupidity|is unable to convince Luthor to let him kill Batman]]. Even more interesting: Batman actually plays several cards ''at the same time'', playing on Solomon Grundy's insecurities, playing the sympathy and sex appeal cards with Cheetah, and eventually delivering a massive bribe to {{spoiler|the Ultra-Humanite (which Humanite donates to PBS)}}. And then, because he's Batman, he reveals at the end that he could have escaped ''any time he wanted to''.
** Batman also used this in ''[[Batman: The Animated Series|Batman the Animated Series]]'', when Harley Quinn singlehandedly captured him and put him in a [[Death Trap]] ''he actually couldn't escape from''. He played off her infatuation with the Joker and convinced her to call him so that he could "witness" his death, knowing that his ego [[The Only One Allowed to Defeat You|wouldn't allow anyone else to off the Batman]].
** And when caught and held defenseless by Scarface's gang, Batman convinces Scarface that the one who sold them out was Arnold Whesker, aka The Ventriloquist. Scarface angrily orders his men to kill Whesker, and when they hesitate think they are traitors as well. Batman escapes in the chaos and bring the gangsters down. The twist? Scarface ''is'' Arnold Whesker - he is just a [[Demonic Dummy|ventriloquist's doll]] that Whesker uses to manifest his psychotic [[Split Personality]].
* ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'': Batman apparently passed this skill onto his protegé, as Robin spends an entire second-season episode convincing Atlas' sidekick, Spike, to turn on his master, who treats him like dirt. He succeeds, helping Cyborg save the day when Spike refuses to give Atlas an unfair advantage in their final battle.
* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'': The [[Genre Savvy]] Sokka manages to pull this off when the gaang is captured by pirates and [[Anti-Villain|Zuko]], convincing the pirates that they'd get a better deal personally handing [[The Chosen One|the Avatar]] over to the [[Big Bad|Fire Lord]] instead of trading him to Zuko for their valuable scroll. Zuko sees right through it, but the pirates take the bait, a fight breaks out, and the gaang escapes during the chaos.
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== [[Real Life]] ==
* When large groups of citizens were protesting the electoral fraud in the 2000 elections in Serbia, clever protesters who were jailed used this to spread their message on a personal level to the security forces. As a result, they were more lenient in future incidents than [[Big Bad]] Milosevic wanted them to be, and this eventually led to his overthrow.
* A computer programmer named [[Eliezer Yudkowsky]] (writer of ''[[Three Worlds Collide]]'' and ''[[Harry Potter and
* [[Benedict Cumberbatch]] managed to talk his way out of [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2085527/Benedict-Cumberbatch-Sherlock-star-talked-way-kidnap-attempt-South-Africa.html a kidnapping] while in South Africa.
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[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]
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