This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Tzintzuntzan: I seem to recall the I Have a Family ploy actually working several times in some of the old Looney Toons shorts — it usually being made clear that Bugs was making the family up. I also vaguely remember Daffy talking Elmer out of shooting him by producing not just the photo reel, but the entire live family, on the spot. Anyone else remember more detail?
Miss Hap: I think I remember this as well, and I'm pretty sure the argument was not just that Bugs had a family, but that without him, they would starve. I'm also pretty sure it was more likely to work on Elmer Fudd (who was both not very bright and a soft touch) than Yosemite Sam (who was too angry to care). I don't remember any specific examples, however.
- A nameless factory makes this plea of the hell goddess Glory in Season 5 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
HeartBurn Kid: OK, I want to correct this, but I never really followed Buffy (I know, I'm a heathen, but it got canceled before I got my Ti Vo), and I've heard it could get pretty quirky sometimes. So, was this an actual factory pleading for its life, or just a factory worker?
Jefepato: It also worked indirectly in one Dominic Deegan strip, where Scarletti was unwilling to murder Dominic's father because "the man has a family." I don't have the time to dig through the archives for it right now, though.
Kilyle: The idea is, of course, to try to make the captor/attacker see you as a person instead of as an object, or, if he sees you as a person he wants revenge on, to consider the other people he will be hurting. This works better on heroes, of course, which is often unfortunate. But while it isn't this trope specifically, the idea of reaching out to the humanity of a captor has worked, and not just in fiction. There was a story in the news a couple years back about a woman taken hostage by a prisoner in a courtroom who somehow managed to get a weapon and get free. She talked with him for a apparently some hours while he held her hostage, and at the end, he turned himself in without a fight.
