Targeted Human Sacrifice

Uh oh... Alice finds herself captured and strapped to a wall/altar in the center of a big magic symbol. Candles are set in very specific places while an Ominous Latin Choir hums in the background. It's obvious that she is going to be used in a dark ritual to summon an evil god of sorts, or alternatively, unlock a magical lock to a MacGuffin. There can be several reasons why the evil forces go to the trouble of specifically capturing Alice, instead of just capturing a random innocent victim:

• The Big Bad comes back stronger this way
• They need it to overcome some specific power seal (Overlaps with 1, but is not identical to it)
• The ritual literally can only be done with Alice's blood/life force.

The actual sacrifice factor can range anywhere from just needing Alice's fresh blood to needing her full life force. Not that it changes much, since whoever is in lead of the ritual is not going to leave her alive.

Subtrope of Human Sacrifice. The key difference between this trope and Human Sacrifice is that that one would work with any John Doe picked up from the street, this trope specifically needs Alice to make the ritual work, no exceptions.

Barrier Maidens tend to pe prime targets for this, for obvious reasons.

Examples of Targeted Human Sacrifice include:

Anime and Manga

• A group from Naruto called Akatsuki tries to do this not once, but nine times! They search for the nine Jinchuriki, including protagonists Naruto and Gaara, to extract their inner demons.
• In Blue Seed, it is said that to stop the Arigami, the "Kushinada" (a human literally bred to be a human sacrifice) must be sacrificed.
• In Fullmetal Alchemist, Father needs people who not only can open the Gate, but have done it once before and survived: this ends up being the Elric brothers, Hohenheim, Izumi Curtis, and Roy Mustang. Without them, he can't perform his ritual and capture the power of God. They are targeted more because of their skills and experiences than some particular power or bloodline, but finding replacements would be extremely difficult, so it counts.

Movies

• In Pirates of the Caribbean, to reverse a curse, the blood of a specific pirate is required - or that of his descendant Will Turner. They only need a small amount, as we learn when they attempt to use Elizabeth. But by the time they got Will, they were angry enough at him that they were decided to slit his throat instead.
• The Big Bad from the first Scooby-Doo movie needs a pure soul for his ritual. The only soul meeting the requirements on the whole island is Scooby's.
• Bleach: Memories of Nobody. The girl Senna (who is also the Memory Rosary) is captured by the Dark Ones (exiled Soul Reapers). They try to sacrifice her in order to collapse the Valley of Screams and destroy both the World of the Living and the Soul Society.
• In The Wicker Man, Howie is slated to be the sacrifice because he's still a virgin, because he's acting as a representative of the Crown, and maybe other reasons.

Literature

• In Harry Potter, book 4 the Death Eaters capture Harry Potter in order to revive Voldemort. It's mentioned that they could've just taken any wizard who hated Voldemort for the base ritual to succeed, but Voldemort needed Harry's blood to get past his protective ward.
• In The Dresden Files likes this trope.
  • In Summer Knight Aurora needs Lilly, because she holds the power of the summer knight, and killing her at that time and place will give the power to the Winter Court.
  • In Blood Rites Lord Raith needs to kill both Harry and Thomas to break the curse their mother laid on him, because it's tied to her bloodline.
  • In the Red Court needs to kill Harry's daughter so that the spell will trace her bloodline back and hit both Harry and his grandfather Ebenezar, one of the most powerful wizards in the world.

Live Action Television

• In Buffy the Vampire Slayer Glory needs Dawn because she's The Key, an interdimensional gateway recently turned into a human being. The fact that activating its power will involve killing her is basically incidental.
• In Angel the demon Yeshka has the pretty exacting sacrifice requirements that people have to sacrifice their daughter, she has to be a virgin, and it has to be done on the father's fiftieth birthday.
• In The Vampire Diaries Klaus needs to sacrifice Elena, that latest "Petrova doppleganger" to break the curse binding him. He also needs a vampire and a werewolf, but those are easier to get hold of.

Video Games

• Almost happens to the Avatar in the beginning of Ultima VI.
• In Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Ganon's followers are gunning for Link because they need to sprinkle his blood on Ganon's ashes in order to resurrect him.
• In A Link to The Past, Aghanim/Ganon uses this on the descendants of the seven Sages to release the seal to the Dark World.
• In The Legend of Zelda Oracle Games, sacrificing Zelda is needed to Revive Ganon. When foiled, the perpetrators sacrificed themselves instead, and Ganon Came Back Wrong.
• In Persona 3, Shuji Ikutsuki tries to sacrifice the heroes to bring about The Fall, but it doesn't work.
• Colette Brunel in Tales of Symphonia was to be sacrificed by the Big Bad Mithos to resurrect his sister in her body. Though it is stated that several other people were used for the ritual before, it has never worked before, most likely due to the body not matching or whatever.

Web Comics

• In Gunnerkrigg Court, the first generation of the Court hits upon a self-defense scheme that involves killing a particular person, and immediately afterwards splitting the soul of their grieving lover, so the negative parts of their soul become an angry superpowered spirit, trapped at the place they died. The man who came up with this scheme insisted that the chosen targets were the only ones who would work as a sacrifice, but it's implied that he also selected these two because one of them was the target of his unrequited affection.