The Promise: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

Whether they [[I Gave My Word|succeed]], [[Failure Knight|fail]] or refuse to keep their promise depends almost entirely on the [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism|idealism-level]] of the show. Though other factors, such as whether they were told what they had to do, or if it was a [[Leonine Contract]], may come into play.

 

Compare: [[Heroic Vow]], [[Childhood Marriage Promise]], [[Pinky Swear]], [[If We Survive This]]. See also [[Empty Promise]] and [[Frequently-Broken Unbreakable Vow]].

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* In the Soul Society arc of ''[[Bleach]]'', Ichigo ''will'' save Rukia... whether she likes it or not.

** Later on, during the Arrancar Arc, Ichigo vows to {{spoiler|Orihime that "next time... I'll definitely protect you!" And later, during the Hueco Mundo Arc, he tells her "Don't worry. I'm definitely going to win."}}

* Keitaro holds strongly to his 15-year-old promise to get into Tokyo University for/with a nearly-forgotten girl in ''[[Love Hina]]''. He also made a similar promise to forever be with his adoptive sister, which she does indeed dramatically call him on in the [[OVA]] sequel, ''Love Hina Again''. The concept of promises also is the main theme of the episode about the [[Robot Girl]] Moe.

* Both Lottie and Sara in ''[[Soukou no Strain]]'' promised to become Reasoners and see their brothers again. {{spoiler|One brother kills the other before either can reunite.}}

*** Well, yeah. He does. He's devoted his life to turning himself into a vengeance machine. If the original quest had come to a satisfying conclusion, maybe he could have moved on and rebuilt himself into something new, but instead Itachi acted ''very weird'' and then Madara came in and filled in the plotholes with the fact that he threw away ''everything'' for ''nothing'' because the person he hated more than anything had loved him more than anything, and his true enemies were the people who'd forced them into that position. Naturally all he can do is kill someone.

* In the Battle City arc of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'', Jounouchi's/Joey's major motivation is his promise to duel with Yugi and get back his Red-Eyes Black Dragon card.

* ''[[Elfen Lied]]'' plays around with this in the scene where the villainous Bando, rescued by Mayu earlier in the series and feeling indebted, promises to save her once if she winds in trouble. Mayu is forced to cash in this promise not even a minute later, when ''Bando himself attacks her.''

** But when she calls for his help again, he shows up in minutes and knocks the stuffing out of the man {{spoiler|sexually assaulting her.}}

** In the previous season, Takeru promises to Sora that he'd protect Hikari. A promise which he still takes rather seriously in [[Digimon Adventure 02]], as he is seen putting himself protectively in front of Hikari (episode 3), seemed angry at himself for accidentally leaving her stranded in the Digital World (episode 7), and doggedly searched for her when she was taken by the Dark Ocean (episode 13).

* ''[[GetBackers]]:'' Ban promised Yamato that he would protect Himiko from her curse, and Juubei promised to stop Kazuki if he ever strayed "from the path of righteousness."

* ''[[Katekyo Hitman Reborn]]:'' Squalo promised 8 years ago to Xanxus that he will never cut his hair until Xanxus becomes the boss of Vongola. And he did, {{spoiler|for eighteen years into the alternate future from the Ten Years Bazooka}}. Obviously because {{spoiler|Xanxus doesn't have the blood of Vongola, thus it's impossible for him to become Boss}}.

* ''[[Peacemaker Kurogane]]:'' Tetsunosuke promised to his friend Saya that he would not kill.

* ''[[Nabari no Ou]]:'' Miharu's promise to Yoite, made under duress, to {{spoiler|erase Yoite's existence once Miharu can use the Sinrabanshou}} becomes the main tension and plotline of the series, as well as a source of a lot of its angst.

* ''[[Madlax]]'' has Madlax and Vanessa promising each other to survive. {{spoiler|It looks like Vanessa fails, but along comes [[Reality Warper|Margaret]] ex machina...}}

* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'': At the last second in season three, it is revealed that in their past life together, Juudai promised that he would love only Yubel forever. This became the driving force of hir motivation when sie returned in season three. [[Fridge Horror|Then one remembers that Yubel can freely alter people's memories, and has no moral compunctions that would prevent hir from using these powers to get hir way...]]

** And then one remembers that their souls fused and any lies on either side would've been known and that Yubel didn't know that Juudai had remembered their past together. Yubel had nothing to do with his memories reviving. That happened because he'd actually inflicted damage on Yubel, which almost no one can do, since Yubel's effect is to take no battle damage at all. Not to mention that if Yubel lied, it would've been a part of the plot. Juudai loves Yubel. Their past is not a lie.

* ''[[Chrono Crusade]]'' has several promises that the main characters take very seriously. The first is that {{spoiler|[[Posthumous Character|Mary Magdalene]]}} made Chrono promise to "live", which is implied to be the only reason he {{spoiler|didn't commit suicide after her death}}. Also, the manga version shows Joshua and Rosette promise as children to {{spoiler|"grow-up together"--remembering his promise is what gives Joshua the strength to reject Chrono's horns}}. Also, when Rosette made [[Deal with the Devil|her contract with Chrono]], Chrono seems to have promised ''himself'' that he would protect her, even going to the point of saying he promised to "never make her cry" in the manga. When he's forced to break this promise at one point, he becomes [[Unstoppable Rage|really pissed]].

* In ''[[The Secret Agreement]]'', Iori tells Yuuichi that he loves him more than anything and [[Exact Words|would sacrifice anything for him]]. This is perfectly romantic until Kyuusai reveals to Yuuichi that he is born to steal life-energy and that his destined prey, under the delusion of love, will naturally [[Harsher in Hindsight|offer his life]] for him to take.

** Sosuke's mother promises she will come back; Sosuke and Ponyo set out in search of her when she doesn't.

* [[Code Geass]] has several. A couple of them are found on the [[Pinky Swear]] page and are explained in more detail there. A non-pinky promise comes during arguably the biggest [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]] in the series; when [[Magnificent Bastard|Lelouch]] realises how much his friends care about him, he [[Manly Tears|tearfully]] promises them that he'll set off fireworks with them again someday. {{spoiler|He doesn't, and when he realises he won't be able to keep this promise, he calls them to apologise and say goodbye.}}

 

== Comic Books ==

* ''[[Usagi Yojimbo]]'' has the story ''A Promise In the Snow'' where the titular character promises a young girl her gravely wounded father won't die. After they're all nearly buried by an avalanche and Usagi has been battered unconscious, the girl invokes Usagi's promise to get him back on his feet.

 

 

== Film ==

* The German film ''[[Das Versprechen]]'' literally means "The Promise." It's about a teenage couple in which the girl escapes from East Germany, and her boyfriend promises "Ich komme nach" (roughly: I will come after you). The movie's plot is basically how difficult that is for him to accomplish.

 

== Literature ==

* The poems of Robert Service occasionally feature these, such as "The Cremation of Sam McGee" or "The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill". In the former, a man must carry Sam's dead body around with in the Arctic him until he finds a place to cremate him, and in the latter, an undertaker has to journey out to find Bill's dead body and give him a proper burial. Except that his ''rigor mortis'' prevents him from fitting into the coffin. [[Dead Baby Comedy|Why, look. A hacksaw.]]

* In the ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' series, it's mentioned several times that "A Wizard always keeps his promises." At one point, a secondary character tells the main character that the reason this happens is, as a wizard, he's subconsciously using his magic to make sure the promise is kept.

* In the novel ''The Oathbound Wizard'' by Christopher Stasheff the wizard Matt Mantrell makes a careless hyperbolic vow to overthrow a nearby [[Big Bad]]. Since he lives in a magical world with similar laws to Medieval legend, he is honor bound to do so. He later convinces God that the vow was made in error and he shouldn't be held to it, but by then he has seen how horrible the [[Big Bad]] is and wants to overthrow him anyway.

* In [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[Chronicles of Chaos]]'', having someone make and break a promise is a potent source of magical power over them.

* In the [[Chivalric Romance]] ''Sir Orfeo'', the King of Fairy must give up Orfeo's wife because he gave a promise to Orfeo, [[King Incognito|disguised as a ministrel]].

** In [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''Legion'', Alpharius is reluctant to leave an undertaking because he has promised to do it. [[With Due Respect|Soneka objects that they always act with relentless pragmatism.]]

** In James Swallow's ''The Flight of the Eisenstein'', Garro reveals Horus's treacherous attack to his men, and demands that they swear an oath of moment on [[Cool Sword|his sword Libertas]]. An intercepted order [[Debate and Switch|reveals to all of them that he tells the truth]], and they all swear.

* In [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[Coraline (novel)|Coraline]]'', Coraline goes to pry a promise out the Other Mother, who first tries to swear on her mother's grave. When Coraline asks if her mother has a grave, the Other Mother says she put her there herself, and put her back when she crawled out. Coraline insists on something else, and the Other Mother swears by her strong right hand. {{spoiler|When she breaks it, she sends her hand after Coraline.}}

"I won't." }}

** Then Car'das neglects the promise for ''fifty years'', until [[Survivors Quest]].

* In [[Lewis Carroll]]'s ''[[Sylvie and Bruno]]'', a subject of discussion between Lady Muriel and the narrator.

* In ''[[The Silmarillion]]'', Feanor and his sons swore a terrible oath to recover the Silmarils at any cost. These Silmarils were three hallowed jewels which Feanor made, and which [[Big Bad|Morgoth]] stole. Centuries later the oath destroyed them thoroughly, and resulted in them slaughtering many innocents. Even after the last two surviving sons [[Tragic Villain|thoroughly hated the oath and wished to stop killing people]] over the jewels, they felt (or thought they were) somehow compelled to continue.

** In ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', Aragorn can summon the Dead to fullfill the oath of assistance that they did not respect centuries before.

* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s "[[The Vale of Lost Women]]" Livia promises herself to [[Conan the Barbarian]] if he will free her from her captor. Then she bolts in panic. When he rescues her again, she admits to breaking it and deserving punishment; he returns her home instead because it would have been no better than rape.

* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Kull]] story "The Shadow Kingdom", after Kull and Brule learn that the ghosts of those the Snakemen kill are [[Made a Slave|their slaves]].

"I swear," answered Brule, his fierce eyes lighting. "And do ye the same by me, Kull." Their strong right hands met in a silent sealing of their bloody bargain.'' }}

* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Kull]]/[[Bran Mak Morn]] story "Kings of the Night", Bran's problem is that one tribe is willing to break its promise if it does not follow a man of its own blood.

* In [[Juliet Marillier]]'s ''Son of the Shadows'', the heroine refuses to give her promise to stay in Sevenwaters to the Fair Folk, knowing that it will come back to haunt her if she does - The Fair Folk always get what is promised to them.

* In ''Between the Rivers'' by [[Harry Turtledove]], the protagonist in a grandstanding moment vows that he won't marry his sweetheart until the completion of the trading expedition he's about to embark on. It seems like a safe thing to do since it's a routine expedition and he wasn't planning to marry her until after he got back anyway. But then the nation they were going to trade with unexpectedly puts a trading embargo on the protagonist's city. And the god he swore by is real, interventionist, and quite willing to make the vow stick.

* In Teresa Frohock's ''[[Miserere: An Autumn Tale|Miserere an Autumn Tale]]'', Lucian promised to look after Catarina.

* In [[Gene Stratton Porter]]'s ''[[Freckles]]'', when he realizes he could cure his ignorance, Freckles promises he will.

* In ''[[His Dark Materials]]'', Lyra promises a friend that she'd come and save him if he ever got kidnapped. In the process of trying to keep this promise, she travels to Svalbard, burns down a military-protected research station and [[Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?|tricks the king of the]] [[Everything's Worse with Bears|Armoured Bears]]. {{spoiler|[[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|She ultimately ends up accidentally getting him killed anyway,]] [[Determinator|and travels to the World of the Dead to apologise for it]].}}

* In [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[Hermetic Millenium|Count to a Trillion]]'', Menelaus's mother explained her cruel punishment on the grounds that Darwin required it. The young Menelaus concluded that Darwin was a villian, and promised that he would stop him.

 

* ''[[Torchwood]]'': "Tommy, you're my big handsome hero, and I need you." (Interesting Western example with English and Japanese characters as the promiser/-ee.)

* Averted in ''[[Farscape]]'' with John and Scorpius. John promises to give Scorpius all of the wormhole knowledge in exchange for help rescuing Aeryn, but this debt is later wiped out when John comes up with a way of hurting the Scarrans, which makes Scorpius VERY happy. [[Played for Laughs]] with John's promise to Aeryn that he wouldn't hurt Scorpius since Scorpy saved her life. Aeryn releases him from the promise, but they never intended to kill him, anyway.

* Several promises have been made on ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]''. Freya promises that one day she will repay Merlin for his help, and does so by delivering Excalibur into his keeping. Arthur promises Guinevere that when he is King, they'll be together. Whilst held hostage by a warlord, Lancelot promises Guinevere that he'll rescue her - this thus far is the only promise that hasn't been kept - whilst Lancelot does his best, it is Arthur and not Lancelot that rescues them.

 

 

== Video Games ==

Master Chief: "Lucky me." }}

* In [[Planescape: Torment]], your character can actually do this as a dialogue option. Sometimes, dialogue choices (in some specific, important and dramatic scenes) will have a declaration of intent hidden, such as "Truth", "Lie", and, most importantly, "Make Vow". Those dialogue choices affect your [[Character Alignment]]: you become more Lawful if you tell the truth, and more Chaotic if you lie.

* A promise is the driving force behind the plot of ''[[Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten]]'', hence the title. The main character, Valvatorez made a promise to give his Prinny trainees a sardine once they finish their training. However, the Netherworld's government decides that all of the Prinnies need to be exterminated to cut back on expenses, which would keep him from fulfilling his promise. So naturally, he decides to overthrow the government.

** In a deliberate echo in ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'', Roxas makes a promise that he'll meet up again with his friends in Twilight Town. {{spoiler|Sora fulfills it vicariously for him, and gets the Oathkeeper keyblade for doing so.}}

* ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' has a promise between Squall and Rinoa.

Rinoa: "I'll be here, too. It's a promise! Thanks Squall! Next time, we'll meet for sure!" }}

:: In the ending, when the two are lost in the endless space-time continuum, they find each other by imagining the field of flowers the promise took place in.

* Cloud's childhood promise to Tifa that he would protect her if she ever got into trouble from ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]''.

** He has a tendency to show up a little late.

* In [[Castlevania Sorrow|Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow]], Soma Cruz asks {{spoiler|Julius Belmont}} to promise to kill him if he turns evil. Thankfully, the person making the promise is reliable and more than strong enough to fulfil said promise if it comes to that. {{spoiler|In Aria's bad ending, Julius turns up in the throne room to kill Soma, and in Julius Mode in ''Dawn'', Julius gets Yoko and Alucard's help to take down Soma.}}

'''{{spoiler|Julius:}}''' Farewell, my friend. Don't let me use that whip again. }}

** A bigger promise is for [[True Companions|SEES]] to meet up again on Graduation Day, {{spoiler|if they manage to beat Nyx}}.

* In ''[[Solatorobo]]'', Elh promises Red a billion rings if he helps to complete the Rite of Forfeit. {{spoiler|Of course, Elh actually doesn't ''have'' a billion rings and, if the Rite had gone [[Human Sacrifice|as it usually did]], Red wouldn't have needed them anyway. Red survived, however, and instead of being angry, he just [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|invited Elh to join his team]] - [[I Was Just Passing Through|ostensibly to work off that debt]], of course, but [[Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other|nobody was fooled]].}}

* If Shepard enters into a romantic relationship with Liara in ''[[Mass Effect]]'', at the conclusion of ''Lair of the Shadow Broker'' in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', Liara asks Shepard to promise her that s/he's always coming back. {{spoiler|At the moment, it isn't clear if Shepard gets to keep the promise or not.}}

 

** He's incensed when his son, Roy, gets to go on to the afterlife proper, since Roy didn't fulfill the terms of the Oath either. It's pointed out by a Being of Pure Law and Good that Roy gets to move on because he died in direct pursuit of the quest his worthless flake of a father dumped on him by consciously abandoning it.

* In ''[[Our Little Adventure]]'', [http://danielscreations.com/ola/comics/ep0132.html Angelika tries to get one from Lenny, who responds by asking for one in return.]

* In ''[[No Rest for The Wicked (webcomic)|No Rest for The Wicked]]'',

** [http://www.forthewicked.net/archive/03-74.html Claire had promised that she would survive, regardless. She had forgotten that.]

 

== Western Animation ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Dialogue]]

[[Category:Morality Tropes]]

[[Category:Fairy Tale Tropes]]

[[Category:Older Than Print]]