Scarpia Ultimatum

Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite,
Lay by all nicetie, and prolixious blushes
That banish what they sue for: Redeem thy brother,
By yielding up thy body to my will,
Or else he must not only die the death,
But thy unkindness shall his death draw out

To ling'ring sufferance.
—Angelo, Measure for Measure

A villain has the hero in his clutches. The only person pleading for the hero is his wife/girlfriend. So the villain says, "I'll only release him if you have sex with me." And now the heroine has to choose whether her love for her husband's well-being overrides her sexual loyalty. Typically, she (or sometimes even he) will agree to the ultimatum, but before the two of them do the deed, a Third Option will present itself, and the sacrifice won't be needed after all. Except if it is used as a premise for an erotic story.

The G-rated version of this is "if you marry me" instead of "if you sleep with me" although the one tends to imply the other. In certain contexts this is even more sinister, as marriage is somewhat more permanent than a one-night stand.

When the wife/sweetheart/sister/daughter/etc. makes the offer, see Please, I Will Do Anything!.

See also I Have You Now, My Pretty and I Have Your Wife.

And yes, the trope name sounds like a Robert Ludlum novel.

No real life examples, please; this is a rape trope, and All The Tropes does not care to squick its readers. If you have evidence of this happening in Real Life, tell the police, not us.

Examples of Scarpia Ultimatum include:

Anime and Manga

  • In Mai-Otome, Tomoe does this to an imprisoned Shizuru by lying that Natsuki has also been captured and insinuating that she will help free both of them if Shizuru submits to her advances. However, Shizuru received a smuggled letter from Natsuki before going through with it, so she knew this was a lie and ended up using the event as an opportunity to steal Tomoe's key to her cell. Whether this was before or after the act was left ambiguous - we only see Tomoe passed out in the bed, dressed up as a baby, while an either topless or naked Shizuru is holding the key.
  • The truth behind Krauss and Natsuhi's marriage in Umineko no Naku Koro ni, as Krauss's father Kinzou forced Natsuhi into it as a reconciliation of her family's debts to him.
  • Daisuke Torakura, the Asshole Victim from a Detective Conan case, got to marry the prettiest girl from a village near his Big Fancy House via this, threatening to ruin her father's business and throw the family into destitution.
  • Happens in the manwha Masca in which the demon lord refuses to lift the spell that will kill the protagonist's beloved mentor/potential love interest unless she sleeps with him.

Comic Books

  • In Empowered, Empowered is offered the chance to save Ninjetta and Thug Boy if she gives the villain a blowjob. She chooses to kick his ass.
  • New Mutants has a surprisingly G-rated version given the participants - Amara (Magma) and Mephisto. The specific terms are that he'll let them out of Hell in exchange for "one date, no strings".

Fan Fiction

L: If you're finally going to admit that you're Kira I'll have you know that so far your various futures entail your being my Sex Slave, the government's sex slave, or locked up in some mental institution. Of the three I prefer your being my sex slave but the decision is yours. Or Naomi-chan could shoot you behind the chemical shed, if that's preferable.

Film

  • In Casablanca, there's a scene with a young Bulgarian couple trying to buy passage to Lisbon from Captain Renault. He wants either an enormous sum of money or sex with wifey. In the end, Rick helps them raise the money by letting them win at roulette. As opposed to most examples on this list, Captain Renault apparently always does keep his word, and is willing to take the money if they do happen to have it.

Renault: I'll forgive you this time. But I'll be in tomorrow night with a breathtaking blonde, and it will make me very happy if she loses.

  • The 1940 version of The Thief of Bagdad has a slightly coded version: the Princess learns that her blinded love will recover his sight the moment the villain "takes her in his arms".
  • The titular Villain Protagonist of the Nazi film Jud Süß does this to the Love Interest of one of the film's "heroes," after which his victim drowns herself. This act ultimately leads to his undoing.
  • In The Ten Commandments, Dathan promises not to have Joshua executed if Lilia agrees to be his sex slave and let everyone believe it's of her own free will. As big a Jerkass as Dathan was, he actually upheld his end of the bargain.
  • In the 300 film version, a plot is added where Queen Gorgo is blackmailed into sleeping with The Mole in order to gain his support in convincing the Senate to send the army to reinforce Leonidas. The Mole brutalizes her, and accuses her of adultery in front of the Spartan Senate to turn them against Queen Gorgo. She gets the last laugh by stabbing him, while delivering a ruthless Ironic Echo of the words he said before he raped her. The knife also slits his purse, revealing the Persian gold he was paid to turn traitor, and rallying the Senate behind Leonidas. But, surprisingly, not in time to save him.
  • Done in Slumdog Millionaire, though somewhat strangely. Salim is pointing a gun at Jamal, threatening to kill him, and Latika agrees to sleep with Salim to preempt Jamal's further attempts to protect her. There was no spoken ultimatum, but all things considered, there might as well have been.
  • Indecent Proposal serves up a variation of this. After a married couple blow their life savings in Vegas, a wealthy businessman offers them a million dollars if the wife will spend one night with him. The couple make a mutual decision to accept his offer.
    • The same basic setup is played for laughs in Honeymoon in Vegas.
    • And parodied in Kingpin, in which three guys are involved, one of whom is Amish. It turns out to be All Just a Dream.
    • Also parodied in an episode of Mad About You, when guest star Robert Redford (the businessman in the original movie) makes the same proposal to Jamie. Instead of angst and fear, though, they are ecstatic and happily accept.
  • In the Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Otilia helps her friend Gabita terminate her pregnancy in Ceauşescu-era Romania, when abortion was strictly forbidden. The illegal abortionist they locate, Mr. Bebe, eventually makes it clear that he expects both women to have sex with him as part of his payment. (In partial defense, he had a point that if they were caught, his punishment would have been far more severe than theirs.)
  • This happens in the remake of The Getaway with Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, who play a couple (literal 'couple') of cat-burglars. The guy had been stuck in a Mexican jail (NOT nice) for a while, and suddenly got released. However, now a crooked cop wants him to pull One Last Job, and the plot starts rolling... anyway, towards the end, the cop betrays them (of course) and in the process reveals that the female half of the couple actually slept with him in order to get her hubby out of prison. He's not happy, but it does work out in the end... which makes it a rare example where it actually went through - albeit 'offscreen.'
  • In Cape Fear, Max Cady confronts Bowden's wife Peggy on the houseboat and explains how he can legally get away with raping her by describing it as one of these if she reports it. For the record, he is incorrect and it does still count as rape.

Cady: You proposition me. You instead of (daughter) Nancy. And I'll agree never to see you again, alright? Unless, of course, you want it. And that's how you give your consent.
Peggy: That's not consent, it's blackmail!
Cady: Reasons don't make any difference, you look that up. And as far as blackmail is concerned, you only think I'm going after Nancy. You're just playing it safe. And your husband, he's gonna appreciate your noble gesture, but he ain't never gonna forget it! So, all in all... I don't think you're gonna say too much about this, are you?

    • Of course this was never his real intent. Propositioning the wife was just a diversion so he could rape the daughter.
  • In Back to The Future Part III, Mad Dog drops this one on Doc Brown and Clara; the point is for Clara to dance with Mad Dog to get him to leave Doc alone, but it's as close to lewd as one can get in a gingham dress. Shortly afterward he suggests she have sex with him to cover Doc's debt.
  • In the Directors Cut of Amadeus Salieri will only recommend a job for the financially desperate Mozart if his wife agrees to sleep with him.
    • This one counts as a subversion, as she reluctantly accepts but then Salieri immediately calls his servants and orders them to kick her out - either he changed his mind or he just wanted to humiliate her.
    • In the original play, it's also a subversion but for a different reason: In her agreement to his terms, the wife reveals some cringeworthy details of her sex life with obscene manchild Mozart and Salieri is so offended/Squicked by her wording that he throws her out.
  • Played for laughs in History of the World Part One: "hump/death, hump/death"
  • A version of this happens in the film Gloomy Sunday. Rejection turns some guys into jerks.
  • The Claim employs the Indecent Proposal variation: a world-weary prospector offers a desperate pioneer a lucrative gold claim in exchange for the pioneer's wife and infant daughter (in this case sex with wifey is more implied than stated outright). He accepts, and goes on to build a prosperous mining town, but his past comes back to haunt him when said wife and now-grown daughter return looking for financial support after the prospector died.
  • In the third Pirates of the Caribbean, Elizabeth agrees to go with Sao Feng in order to save the crew of the Black Pearl, considering he had already been eying her in the opening Singapore sequence and later forced a kiss on her when she was on his ship.
  • Used in the movie Blindness, read the example in Literature below.

Literature

  • The novel Bread and Wine plays this straight. A wanted criminal is hiding at his wife's house when the police come by. He hides on the roof while the police search the home. When they're about to search the roof, his wife pleads for them to stop. They are only willing to do so if she sleeps with them, which she does.
  • In the steampunk/urban faerie novel The Iron Dragon's Daughter, the protagonist goes to see a she-ogre and witch to learn about sex magic and discovers she has shrunk her ogre husband down into a grotesque homunculus that she keeps in a jar, in a situation that ultimately began because of this. She bribed two police officers who were tracking him down for a crime (she comments it might have been eating someone's dog, but doesn't remember) with her body, figuring that, in their usual crude fashion, he'd roar with laughter about it once they left and would be watching and playing with himself all the while she was coupling with the police. His disgusted reaction was the first step that saw him dwindle into the horrible little thing she now keeps in her jar.
  • Approximately one-half inverted in the novel Outlander (Cross Stitch in the UK) - it's for a man, and the villain compelling it would much rather it be rape, as he's a sexual sadist.
  • In The Hunger Games, this is more or less how Finnick began his career as a Capitol Casanova. Eventually, he decided that it would be less painful just to go with it and pretend that it was his idea.
  • In one of the Anita Blake novels, the villain says he will stop torturing the two teenage hostages if Jason (the group's pet werewolf) has sex with his two female minions. Subverted in that Jason does agree, and seems to be enjoying it—until the minions start rotting.
  • Played with in Bujold's short story Labyrinth, when 'Admiral' Miles Naismith is obliged to have sex with an eight foot tall (he is a physically fragile four-foot-nine hunchback), fanged, clawed Super Soldier in the hopes of keeping her from killing... herself.
    • Really subverted, since Miles has a thing for very tall women, and no problem with Taura's...uniqueness. They even have one last night together after reaching safety. In fact, Miles and Taura apparently got along so well after this that she was invited to his wedding and bonded with his mother.
  • In The Kite Runner, the Russian guard will only let the truck carrying Afghan refugees into Pakistan if he can have sex with one of the women. Baba, the main character's father, stands up for the couple.
  • Implied in Emma Bull's Bone Dance, although the victim is in fact the protagonist, zie isn't in a romantic relationship with the character whose well-being was at stake (who's female), and the perpetrator didn't have any specific designs on the victim. He's just opportunistic. And it's only really implied; you seriously could read it as just a savage beating.
  • A scene in Dave Barry's surprisingly dirty novel Big Trouble featured a woman who offers herself to an armed thug if he will spare her daughter. She is never forced to go through with it.
  • There's a version in I, Jedi where Corran Horn has a month to heal from a fight before Leona Tavira comes to sleep with him. She's the head of a pirate force called the Invids, and has his wife. He's in disguise as a newly-joined pilot who happens to be quite attractive, and who had bested her previous lover dramatically enough that she'd had him executed. If he disagreed, she would kill him. If he agreed, he'd be closer to her and able to find out about the organization and where Mirax was being kept. Initially he decides to go through with it - he'd do anything to save Mirax - but after some reflection he realizes that pride has something to do with it and takes a third option.
  • In the novel Blindness by José Saramago, a gang of blind inmates led by the only man with a gun takes over the quarantined abandoned asylum, threatening the other residents, and stealing and hoarding all the food supplies. Eventually they demand payment in valuables, and then in women. The women volunteer to go, as a group, in order to save the lives of all the other people living there.
  • In "L'Ingénu" by Voltaire, the title character is sent to prison without reason and his lover, Miss Saint Yves, decides to free him. She pleads her case before a bishop who agrees in exchange for... well, you know. She does it, and gets her man back, but dies soon after without having told the truth.
  • Ivanhoe features 2 examples of this—de Bracy threatening to kill Rowena's father and boyfriend if she doesn't marry him (and adjust that attitude), and Brian de Bois-Guilbert going from trying to rape Rebecca to letting her be executed for witchcraft unless she agrees to marry him after he saves her. Both men meet in the hallway at one point to lament over their utter failure with this trope. Women these days—they just won't cooperate like they're supposed to!
  • Although Dracula can put women in a trance before he bites them, the third time he bites (and metaphorically rapes) Mina, he leaves her completely aware and instead threatens to kill her unconscious husband lying next to her if she resists or screams for help. For the Evulz?
  • In the backstory of the Tide Lords novels, Arkady was given a choice of this type by the Duke of Lebec to save her father from prison. Unfortunately, while the Duke kept his word, Arkady's father died of natural causes before the release order reached the prison. Unusually, there was explicitly no sex involved in this example. The Duke was gay in a violently homophobic culture, so he needed a wife to act as The Beard.
  • In the short story Free Lunch Phoebe and her mother are trying to survive in a postapocalyptic society. A restaurant employee coerces Phoebe into having sex with him in exchange for food, and she starts to offer sex as payment for food every time they meet someone. When her mother finds out, she berates Phoebe and is ashamed of her, even though the food Phoebe got this way was all that was keeping them alive.
  • In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Sammy is in a gay club when it is raided by the police. A fed offers to get him off the hook if Sammy will have sex with him. Sammy agrees.

Live-Action TV

  • Female example: In The Way We Live Now, the evil American woman pulls one of these on Paul. She will reveal the fact that he has previously slept with her to his fiancee if he doesn't give her one last night. And there is no Third Option. Then again, it's hard to feel sorry for him when all he needs is to decide to not trick a woman into marriage on false premises.
  • On an episode of 24, Teri Bauer offers herself to a thug in order to prevent him from raping Kim. She then uses the opportunity to steal his cell phone and call for help.
  • Battlestar Galactica Reimagined: In the beginning of Season 3, Ellen Tigh sleeps with a Cylon to get her husband out of jail. He's released, but it was only a test. Now that it's established she'd do anything for him, the real condition to release him is to have her agreeing to spying on him while he catches up with the rebels. But as soon as her husband believes his rebel friends that she must be spying on him, he kills her after saying he would rather still be tortured in prison that having her spying on him. So not only did she agree to be raped for nothing, it got her killed by the very man she agreed to be raped for in the first place. Can't be more Greek tragedy that that.
  • On Farscape, there is a variation where Aeryn tells Crais he can have anything he wants if he saves John from certain death. He immediately jumps to the obvious.

Crais: Aeryn Sun - are you offering yourself?
Aeryn: You take what you want Crais and I won't stop you.

    • Also averted in that, while Crais does eventually save John, he claims his living ship Talyn made the decision. Which he did not need to say, since as a ship Talyn could not communicate with anyone but Crais, and therefore Crais could have slept with Aeryn without anyone besides him (and Aeryn) being the wiser. Later he tried to begin a normal relationship with Aeryn.
  • Parodied in the Saturday Night Live sketch "The Hangman". The condemned man's wife is a little too eager to screw the Hangman, but he wants the man's grandmother.
    • Another SNL sketch (spoofing Indecent Proposal, above) has Bill Clinton withholding aid for Russia unless he gets a night with Yeltsin's wife. The deal went through, but Congress reduced the package from billions of dollars to $50.
  • In the Inspector Morse episode "Death is Now My Neighbour", one of the female characters agrees to sleep with an Oxford Don when he promises to give her husband the job of Master of the College if she does. Afterwards, he laughs at her and tells her that since her husband slept with his wife years ago, he never had any intention of letting him be Master.
  • In Buffy the Vampire Slayer's musical episode, the villain is a demon that can force anyone to sing and dance. He causes several impromptu performances, which cause the victims to dance faster and faster until they combust. During the inevitable major confrontation, he simply forces anyone who attacks him to dance away. When they realize kleptomaniac teenager Dawn must have stolen his summoning amulet, he threatens to force everyone in Sunnydale to dance until they burn, unless she returns with him to his dimension to "be his queen", as she consented to do by activating the amulet. However, Dawn told the truth when she said she didn't summon him. Xander thought a singing demon would be amusing. The demon looks Xander up and down and tells them to forget it.

Dawn (singing): What I mean, I'm fifteen... so this "queen" thing's illegal!

    • Earlier, in season four, it was played for laughs between Spike and Harmony.

Spike: Anything, will you?
Harmony: Oh, you mean will I have sex with you? Sure!

  • This sort-of happens on Robin Hood, except it's Marian that's providing the ultimatum. Thinking that Robin is dead, she tells Guy that she will "willingly" marry him in exchange for King Richard's life. Guy decides to have his cake and eat it too, and tells the Sheriff that he will help assassinate the King and then : "I will take (Marian) by force."
  • A version appears, and is then averted, in the third season of Gossip Girl. Chuck's uncle Jack has taken Chuck's hotel and offers Blair that he will return it in exchange for a night with her. After she initially refuses he sends her a dress and a note saying: "One last chance to save your man." The whole thing turns into an aversion of the trope, since Blair does indeed go to Jack to have sex with him in return for Chuck getting his beloved hotel back... only to find out that Chuck was in on it the whole time and even bought the dress Jack sent her. Need I say that Chuck was single when the episode ended?
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation: In the episode "First Contact" (4x15), Riker is being held prisoner in an alien hospital. He was sent to the planet surgically altered to look like the native species, but they're getting close to discovering that he's not one of them. One of the female orderlies at the hospital offers to help him escape, but only if he'd sleep with her, as she's never slept with an alien before. It's never shown on screen whether he agrees to sleep with her, but she eventually helps him escape, leaving the audience to presume.
  • In Hispania, Nerea discovers her fiancé Paulo is going to be crucified, so she goes to ask Praetor Galba and tells him Paulo is her brother, asking him to free him. Galba decides to take the chance to finally have sex with her - which he hasn't been able to do due to several circumstances - but before he gets her naked, Nerea blurts out that his wife Claudia and general Marco are conspiring to kill him. Paulo gets sent to the jail again.
  • In the Supernatural episode "The Monster at the End of This Book", Lilith offers to refrain from bringing forth the Apocalypse if Sam Winchester will have sex with her and let her kill him and his brother afterward. Sam takes the opportunity to try to kill her.
  • In War and Remembrance, in a variation Nattalie offers herself as a last resort to a Nazi camp guard. The guard just laughs and points out that Nattalie is not even in a position to bargain with that-but that he just doesn't feel like it.
  • Completely turned on its head in an episode of Law and Order Special Victims Unit, in which a flight attendant is accused of murdering a judge. The detectives learn that her abusive husband is in prison, the judge is part of the parole board, and the wife had been having sex of this kind with him for a long time. The twist comes when they ask the wife why on earth she was trying to get the judge to let her abuser out of jail, and she reveals that she was sleeping with him so that he would keep her husband IN jail - and killed him when, after she'd done what he wanted, he called the parole board and told them to let the husband go anyway.
  • In Game of Thrones, Robb must gain access to a strategic bridge guarded by a lord with more children than he knows what to do with. The only way to gain safe passage is for Catelyn to betroth all five of her children to his offspring.

Music

  • Bob Dylan's "Seven Curses," in which a judge offers to not hang a girl's father in return for sex. Then he hangs the father anyway.
  • Judy Collins sings "Anathea," with much the same plot. (It likely derives from a Hungarian song and may share ancestry with Child Ballad 95 "The Maid Freed From the Gallows.")
  • "Hangman, Hangman" by Great Big Sea; his brother brings money, his sister brings... herself (and "warms [the hangman's] soul"), but the hangman goes back on his word and executes the prisoner.
    • "Gallows Pole" is a cover of the Led Zeppelin arrangement of a traditional song called "The Maid Freed From the Gallows". It's discussed at the other wiki.

Opera and Theater

  • The Trope Namer is Scarpia, the chief of police in Puccini's opera Tosca. Scarpia offers to arrange a mock execution of Cavaradossi (Tosca's lover, who has been jailed for treason) by firing squad, and allow Cavaradossi and Tosca to safely flee the country, if Tosca will have sex with Scarpia. Tosca agrees, but murders Scarpia before he can rape her. Unknown to Tosca, Scarpia had secretly gone back on his word, and Cavaradossi is actually executed by a real firing squad. In despair and cornered by guards who had just discovered Scarpia's body, Tosca throws herself from the tower.
  • Angelo, the villain of Measure for Measure tries to extort sex from a condemned prisoner's sister, a nun in training. Isabella makes it quite clear that she doesn't intend to give in; besides, after she convinces Angelo's ex-fiancee Marianna to sex Angelo up, Angelo proceeds to order her brother's execution anyway, confirming her initial suspicion that she couldn't trust a man anyway who would propose such a deal. She also was initially sure her brother would never want her to do such a thing and was understandably angry when he tried to convince her to go ahead with it (like the sister in all previous versions of the story before Shakespeare got a hold of it).
  • Also used in Il Trovatore, by Count Di Luna. Who wants female lead Leonora to marry him in exchange for the freedom of Gypsy troubadour Manrico (who is his long-lost brother, but the count has no idea.) This being opera, it ends in tears and one huge Ironic Hell.
  • Toward the end of Hedda Gabler, Judge Brack very ambiguously blackmails Hedda into this, which is odd, because she seemed attracted to him. She shoots herself, not because she doesn't want to sleep with him, but because she doesn't want to be forced to do anything.
  • In Jean Racine's tragedy Britannicus, Nero falls in love with Junie. He has absolute power over her and her lover, Britannicus. Nero tells Junie to break up with Britannicus—and to make it convincing enough that Britannicus does not become jealous of Nero. Otherwise, Nero will have Britannicus killed. Junie does, but the lovers see each other without Nero watching, and Junie explains why she was so cold. It still ends horribly for everyone concerned.

Professional Wrestling

  • Kane offered to stop his torment of Matt Hardy if Hardy's girlfriend Lita would sleep with him.
  • The WWE even pulled a lesbian version of this: Dawn Marie agreed to break off her "relationship" with Torrie Wilson's father, Al, if Torrie slept with her (hinting that Torrie was Dawn Marie's intended target all along). Torrie agrees. Dawn Marie marries Al, anyway.

Radio

  • Subverted in That Mitchell and Webb Sound, where the husband tries to persuade his wife to sleep with the moustache-twirling villain so he won't be killed... she, of course, vehemently disagrees, as it will dishonour her, but at the same time makes no secret of the fact that after he's gone she'll think nothing of getting hitched to the villain.

Video Games

  • In Grand Theft Auto IV, Niko's first girlfriend, Michelle, is being threatened with prison by the UL Paper Company manager unless she maintains a relationship with Niko. For most players, this will include sexual encounters.
  • In Dantes Inferno, Satan does this to Beatrice.
    • Also Dante himself, in one of his many crimes during the Crusades. A female prisoner offers to sleep with him in exchange for setting her brother free. Unfortunately, she lied. It wasn't her brother, it was her HUSBAND. He murders Dante's father and Beatrice in revenge....after killing Dante.
  • Rather weird subversion happens in Dragon Age: Origins if the player character is female and romancing Alistair. Without going into too much detail, the Warden or Alistair will die automatically if either kills the last boss. And they are the only ones who can do it (in fact, it's part of the reason only they can). One of your party, Morrigan, however offers you a way out - a ritual that happens to involve a Grey Warden getting Morrigan pregnant, something that the player character obviously can't if female. Which leaves Alistair, who happens to hate Morrigan. Did I mention it's up to the Warden to convince her boyfriend to impregnate Morrigan? Although not exactly a villain, she definitely uses the 'death or sex' coercion to make her point.
    • To summarize: there is one character that uses "have sex with me or die", but the sex bit is necessary to keep the death part from happening, and not something she demands as payment.
  • Oddly enough, used in a Visual Novel: Fate/stay night. Gilgamesh offers to let Shirou live if Saber will agree to marry him... which is actually worse than being raped. She wouldn't care about being raped, but considers herself at least equal in position to Gilgamesh while he would view her as only slightly above property. Shirou lives anyway because Saber will disappear if he dies unless Saber is bathed in the Holy Grail's ichor, which Gilgamesh notes absentmindedly may destroy her mind. Oh, and then later he does try to rape her.

Web Comics

  • Although he's not precisely a villain, Jasper apparently pulls this in The Zombie Hunters—it's part of the deal Maureen makes to get him to keep searching for her friends, even after the 3-day cutoff after they disappear.

Web Original

Western Animation

  • Nos. 21 and 24 from The Venture Brothers fantasize about this trope when they discuss striking out on their own as supervillains. No. 24 imagines what it would be like to fly into the bedroom of his arch-nemesis' girlfriend and announce "I'll spare his life, but only for you ... sugar pants."
    • "And dude, you will be having sex! SEX!"
  • The Family Guy episode "Peterotica" has a cutaway gag of Peter housing a "rat farm" in his basement. When the rat couple are unable to pay him rent due to lack of crops, Peter suggests they pay him another way, leering at Mrs. Rat. She begins to weep and unbutton her blouse.
    • In the episode in which Death comes for Peter, Lois mistakenly assumes he wants to use this trope.

G-Rated Examples:

Anime and Manga

  • In Candy Candy, Neil Legan attempts to get Candy to marry him through this. He fails.
  • In Fist of the North Star Shin agrees to spare Kenshiro if his fiance Yuria will love him. This is G-rated because although she does follow Shin, she never actually loves him, nor does Shin ever attempt to force Yuria to love him, hoping to make her willingly change her mind.
  • In Hana no Ko Lunlun, the beautiful Margot from the Germany arc is an Impoverished Patrician, and a filthy rich Dirty Old Man tries to force her into marriage. Lunlun resolves it by challenging the old man to a Medieval-style duel and using her magical flower pin to transform herself into a Knight in Shining Armor.

Comic Books

  • This used to happen frequently in Silver Age Marvel Comics, especially to Susan Storm, the Invisible Woman of the Fantastic Four. In their first encounter, Namor wrecked the FF, then offered to spare them if Sue would marry him and become Queen of Atlantis. She accepted, but Namor became enraged when he saw her reluctance, and stormed off. Variations on this also occurred with Kang the Conqueror and Mole Man (boy, Sue was a hot commodity on the supervillain marriage market!).
    • Rehashed in the Ultimate Marvel version, where she kisses Namor in exchange for him not destroying them and the city.
  • X-Men:
    • Kitty promised to stay with Caliban forever in exchange for helping her teammates, but he later released her from that vow after realizing she didn't love him.
    • Also happened to Angel when Callisto from the Morlocks group decided that she needed a future mate. The TV series used the same set-up but with Cyclops instead.

Film

  • Beetlejuice. And Beetlejuice makes it very clear that one implies the other (it is a Tim Burton film, after all).
  • Rare male version: In The Matrix: Reloaded, Persephone refuses to help the rebels unless Neo gives her a passionate kiss, as he would to Trinity. Trinity is not amused.
    • She does this again in the Enter the Matrix videogame with the main character, whether you chose Ghost...or Niobe.

Literature

  • In A Series of Unfortunate Events, Violet is being forced to marry Olaf (in a play so no one will object to her being so young) because he has her sister Sunny and will kill her if she doesn't. Although Olaf is specifically marrying her for the money and doesn't seem to have sex in mind primarily, there are still several disturbing innuendos: Olaf utters the quite Squicky line after being foiled, "You may not be my wife, but you are still my daughter, and--"; he decides that he'll let her live even after he has the fortune and makes quite a few comments on how pretty she is; he has a knife to her THIGH under the table in the next book; and don't forget the lines, "Violet imagined sleeping beside Count Olaf, and waking up each morning to look at this terrible man," and Olaf saying, "Now if you'll excuse us, me and my bride will be off to have our wedding night..." Now that's just...wrong. Handler must have known what that would imply to his older readers.
  • The Phantom of the Opera: Erik threatens to blow up the Opera House and everyone in it if Christine doesn't marry him. She tries to kill herself, and it's not until her fiancé Raoul is dying in Erik's Drowning Pit that she vows to be Erik's "living wife" if he spares Raoul. Unusually, it's Erik himself who introduces the third option by deciding I Want My Beloved to Be Happy.
    • However, in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical and movie version, the phantom imposes the ultimatum himself.
  • In C. S. Lewis' The Horse And His Boy, Prince Rabadash attempts to blackmail Queen Susan into marrying him by holding her brothers and retinue hostage. Fortunately, they get wind of the plan before it can be set in motion, and manage to escape.
  • Holes: The origin story for Kissin' Kate Barlow. The sheriff threatens to hang Sam, a black man, for kissing Miss Katherine Barlow. When Katherine protests, the sheriff says that if she'll kiss him, too, he'll only run Sam out of town. She refuses and tries to run away with Sam, but they're caught and in the process Sam is shot and killed. Afterwards, Katherine shoots the sheriff, then puts on bright red lipstick and kisses him. When she turns to outlawry, her calling card is kissing the men she kills.

Live-Action TV

  • Happens in iCarly, where somebody steals Carly's internet domain. He would be content with just a kiss from her.

Theatre

  • In the Musical version of The Phantom of the Opera, he even has a wedding dress for the occasion, and the Death Trap scene is changed to him trapping Raoul in his Punjab lasso and threatening to hang him.

"His life is now the prize that you must earn. So, do you end your days with me, or do you send him to his grave?"

Video Games

  • Comes into play in Final Fantasy VI. The party needs an airship and Setzer will only allow them to use his in exchange for Celes' hand in marriage. Celes manages to cheat her way out of the agreement and gets the airship anyway.
    • Specifically, the style and audacity she uses to cheat him he finds so amusing that he pledges his life to their cause because the group's adventures are...well, crazy.

Western Animation

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