History Main / TheLadysFavour

* In Sir ArthurConanDoyle's historical novel ''The White Company'' Sir Nigel wears his lady wife's leather glove on his hat as a favor. Lady Loring is several inches taller than her husband, much heftier and harsh featured but as far as her loving hubby is concerned she is the most delicate and delectable creature on Earth. Joke about the size of her glove at your peril.

* OlderThanPrint: This goes back to medieval ChivalricRomance stories, in which a lady would give a favored [[KnightInShiningArmor knight]] a token (such as a scarf) to tie around his lance as a pennon when he jousted.

* In RobertEHoward's ConanTheBarbarian story "Black Colossus", all the knights carry them to war.

* In GeneStrattonPotter's, a bit of blue ribbon from Angel.

* After rescuing Princess Gwaelin (Lora in the GBC version) from the dragon in ''DragonQuestI'', she gives the Hero a token of her love, which tells you how far you are from Tantegel Castle and how much experience you need for the next level.

* The book ''Rilla of Ingleside'' (a sequel to ''Literature/AnneOfGreenGables'') has some form of this. The title character's old childhood friend is about to go fight in World War I, so he asks her to marry him. She's in love with somebody else, so she can't. Then he asks her to give him one last kiss, at least. Sorry, she promised her lips to the other guy as well. Bummer...

* In JamesThurber's ''The13Clocks'', Princess Saralinda throws Prince Zorn a rose as he is about to go on [[TheQuest a quest]] for a thousand jewels.

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* OlderThanPrint: This goes back to stories of the days of chivalry (e.g. ThomasMalory and [[KingArthur Le Morte d'Arthur]]), when a lady would give a favored [[KnightInShiningArmor knight]] a token (such as a scarf) to tie around his lance as a pennon when he jousted.
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* Gender-flipped in the {{X-Men}} movies. At the end of the first film, Wolverine leaves to go in search of his personal history, and Rogue isn't sure he intends to return. He very gallantly removes his military dog tags and places them in her hands, saying, "I'll be back for these." It's a bit of a zigzag on the trope, because Wolverine considers Rogue more of a little sister in the films than anything else, but the spirit of the gift is still there.

* In SirArthurConanDoyle's historical novel ''The White Company'' Sir Nigel wears his lady wife's leather glove on his hat as a favor. Lady Loring is several inches taller than her husband, much heftier and harsh featured but as far as her loving hubby is concerned she is the most delicate and delectable creature on Earth. Joke about the size of her glove at your peril.

** [[GenderFlip Gender-flipped]] when {{Xander}} proposes to Anya to convince her that they are not going to die.

** Also appeared earlier in the first series episode "Excalibur", one of the knights, Owain, is about to face the Black Knight in a fight to the death. Morgana gives him a token for luck. Subverted in that Owain ends up losing the fight.

* Played straight and gender flipped in the same moment in the FanFic/ElementalChessTrilogy. It's revealed in the second story that Roy and Riza each wear their own two dog tags, but also one belonging to the other; they exchanged them after the war. The official explanation is a practical one - they are each other's next of kin - but the real reason is this trope.

* Arwen gives Aragon her necklace in ''Film/LordOfTheRings''.

The male lead is about to go off to fight the BigBad (or, on occasion, just the bad guy of the week), and there is a very real possibility that he won't be coming back in one piece. Knowing this, his [[LoveInterest female love interest]] decides it would be a good idea to hand him an object -- some piece of jewelry, a trinket, a piece of clothing, a token of some sort -- that she claims is of great personal importance to her (how important it ''really'' is is arguable, but more often than not, it's really only valuable in the personal sense). She makes him promise that he will give it back to her, thereby creating a small bit of assurance that he will return from the battle alive. He invariably will, if for no other reason than he promised he would return her "most prized possession".

** He also does this to Penelo near the beginning of the game, giving her his handkerchief as a promise to bring Vaan back

** This is also true for ''[[FullmetalAlchemist Brotherhood]]''. The origin of these earrings are shown in an OVA as well - turns out they were gifts from Ed in the first place.

* In ''ElCid'' Ximene gives her favor, a black scarf, to an enemy knight to encourage him to kill Rodrigo Diaz, her love and the killer of her father. It is an understatement to say this girl is * seriously* conflicted.

* This goes back to stories of the days of chivalry (e.g. ThomasMalory and [[KingArthur Le Morte d'Arthur]]), when a lady would give a favored [[KnightInShiningArmor knight]] a token (such as a scarf) to tie around his lance as a pennon when he jousted. Thus making this one OlderThanPrint.

* In ''{{Stargate}}'', the old lady, Catherine, gives Daniel a [[PlotCoupon trinket]] she found at the dig site, getting from him the promise that he'll bring it back to her. We all know this means he's not gonna die... but there's a slight twist at the end when [[spoiler:he stays behind, but gives the trinket to O'Neill to return - and since O'Neill pretended that Daniel had died]], it's ''sorta'' like this trope was averted, at least [[spoiler:from the point of view of the characters on Earth.]]

* In ''Grease'', before the Thunder Road race, Cha-Cha gives Leo a trinket extracted from her cleavage.

* Subverted in an episode of ''HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys''. A woman is seen giving a handkerchief to a man who must go slay some mythological beast. It turns out the beast is being controlled by the lady's lover and she is deliberately sending these men to their deaths. This is revealed by a shot of the cave littered with identical handkerchiefs, all given by the same woman to the slain men.

* ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': In one episode, Riley's about to be taken away by the Initiative, and he has her scarf (given more as a bandage than a favour). He romantically, or deliriously, tells her "It's like I have part of you with me." "It's just the scarf part of me. Really."

Tales taking place during Medieval times or otherwise featuring the KnightInShiningArmor may, of course, contain a literal favour from the lady. Generally an article of clothing made specifically for that purpose.

SubTrope of ItWasAGift. May become a MementoMacguffin.

* Cassima's ribbon in ''KingsQuestVI''.

** Gender inversion when {{Xander}} proposes to Anya to convince her that they are not going to die.

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* In ''{{Rurouni Kenshin}}'', Kaoru gives Kenshin her favorite hair ribbon before he sets off to find Jin'e. Then, when he goes to return it, she gets angry at him because he got blood on it. The fact that [[spoiler:it's ''his'' blood]] doesn't seem to bother her in the slightest.
** This story was still early enough in the series that Kenshin had a strong tendency toward mild snarking; it also codified the Kaoru-lambasting-Kenshin thing. Although the 'chase of rage' scenario seemed to be about 2/5ths Kaoru being nutty and 3/5ths their attempting to make it clear that everything was still normal between them after [[TechnicalPacifist he]] [[UnstoppableRage went into]] [[TranquilFury a killing rage]] [[BerserkButton on her behalf]] and [[ItsNotYouItsMyEnemies she nearly died because of her connection to him]] and [[ThePowerOfLove she cared enough about him to break a powerful hypnosis]]...

* Inverted in ''{{Blood Plus}}'', where Okamura leaves his camera with Mao while he, David, Kai, and Lewis go out on a dangerous mission to stop the ''{{Big Bad}}'''s evil plans. She, in return, asks if she can sell it if he dies (then remarks that she probably couldn't, since it's a useless piece of junk).
* In ''{{Bastard}}!!'', Dark Schneider borrows 500 yen from Yoko. Even though he gets himself killed, he comes back from the dead, because Lucien always returns borrowed money.
* In the ''{{Fullmetal Alchemist}}'' manga, Winry gives Ed some earrings to look after. It's actually for a logical reason, but it's clearly intended to hint at this trope.

* In ''[[RanmaOneHalf Ranma1/2]]'', there's a flashback where Happosai remembers Cologne giving him her bracelet to remember her by when he leaves to train. Of course, the way Cologne tells it, he stole it from her. The reader is more inclined to believe Cologne.

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* In SirArthurConanDoyle's historical novel ''The White Company'' Sir Nigel wears his lady wife's leather glove on his hat as a favor. Lady Loring is several inches taller than her husband, much heftier and harsh featured but as far as her loving hubby is concerned she is the most delicate and delectable creature on Earth. Joke about the size of her glove at your peril.

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* [[GenderFlip Gender-flipped]] in an episode of ''{{thirtysomething}}'' where a man going away on a business trip leaves his wristwatch with his wife, who wears it the whole time he's gone.

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** He does finally return it at the end of the second game.
** In the secret ending of Birth by Sleep, Kairi gives her lucky charm to Sora AGAIN when he decided to leave Destiny Island after reading Mickey's letter.
* Appears in, of all things, the ''{{Rambo}}'' game for the NES, in which Co, Rambo's female companion, gives him a pendant to which she ascribes great personal value.

* In ''DragonAgeII,'' if Fenris or Isabela is [[PlayerCharacter Hawke]]'s love interest, s/he begins wearing a red band on his/her wrist which WordOfGod has explained is Hawke's favor.

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->"It's my lucky charm, be sure to bring it back to me."
-->-- '''Kairi''', ''KingdomHearts''

->"My favorite blue ribbon...Take it."\\
"'Take it?' But what could..."\\
"JUST TAKE IT!"\\
"Fine! Yes ma'am!"
-->-- '''Kaoru''' and '''Kenshin''', ''{{Rurouni Kenshin}}''

The male lead is about to go off to fight the BigBad (or, on occasion, just the bad guy of the week), and there is a very real possibility that he won't be coming back in one piece. Knowing this, his [[LoveInterest female love interest]] decides it would be a good idea to hand him an object— some piece of jewelry, a trinket, a piece of clothing, a token of some sort— that she claims is of great personal importance to her (how important it ''really'' is is arguable, but more often than not, it's really only valuable in the personal sense). She makes him promise that he will give it back to her, thereby creating a small bit of assurance that he will return from the battle alive. He invariably will, if for no other reason than he promised he would return her "most prized possession".

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