History Main / TheLadysFavour

* Invoked in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaDawnOfSorrow'', where Arikado gives Soma a talisman from Mina. [[spoiler:Not wearing it at a certain point in the game will result in a BadEnd - it actually helps slow the dark flow of Dracula's power long enough for Arikado to intervene (considering Soma is Dracula's reincarnation and is trying to avoid becoming him).]]

* ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'': Arwen gives Aragorn her necklace.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'': {{Subverted}}. [[DoesNotLikeShoes Ilia]] personally made the Horse Call and ''had'' intended to give it to Link, before he set off to deliver the Ordon Sword and Shield to Hyrule Castle, to ensure his safe return. But King Bulbin and his army attacked the village and abducted her before she had the chance.

SubTrope of ItWasAGift. Compare MementoMacGuffin, HerBoyfriendsJacket, FavorsForTheSexy, and MotivationalKiss.

* The Music/HeatherDale song ''Inspiration'' is about a knight entering a tournament being inspired by his love and one of the versus mentions that he proudly bears her token.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'': Princess Fiona offers her handkerchief to Shrek after he frees her from a tower. He thanks her, uses it to wipe the dirt and sweat off his face, and hands it back.

* ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'': Played with in the third season's WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue. During Zelgadis' montage, it's shown that he keeps one of Amelia's bracelets around a canteen he owns. Earlier in the episode, Amelia asks him to return to her kingdom with her, and he probably refused, so [[WillTheyOrWontThey there's a lot of speculation about what happened in between.]]
* ''LightNovel/SoImASpiderSoWhat'': Female goblins give pressed flowers to hunters when they leave the village, with hope they will return it to them. This tradition started when [[spoiler:Ariel]] gave a pressed flower bookmark to the first goblin, Gob Gob, which he was never able to return.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ladysfavor_godspeed.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:The KnightInShiningArmor receives '''The Lady's Favour''']]

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': In "To Cut a Woman's Hair", Finn is blackmailed into getting some beautiful hair for a balding witch who's holding Jake hostage, and has been made to swear not to tell anyone why he needs the hair. As a result, when he starts asking all the ladies he knows for some hair, they think he's asking for a "lady's favor" and start getting flirty with him, especially Lumpy Space Princess ("If you want these lumps, you gotta put a ring on it!").

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'': Princess Fiona offers this to Shrek after he frees her from a tower. He thanks her, uses it to wipe the dirt and sweat off his face, and hands it back.

* In the ''Series/{{Have Gun Will Travel}}'' episode "Return of the Lady", Diana ties a handkerchief around Paladin's arm before he goes to fight B.G. in a saber duel..

* In the first ''[[Literature/Redwall Redwall]]'' book, Cornflower gives Matthias her kerchief.

* In the 1979 Disney comedy ''A Spaceman in King Arthur's Court'', Sir Mordred has challenged NASA astronaut Tom Trimble to a joust. Mordred gets a scarf tied around his lance by a lady-in-waiting, while Tom has to settle for a feather plucked from a goose by the peasant girl who's sweet on him.

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* The ''Machinima/CultOfPersonality'' series has a platonic example. After surviving the robot invasion in ''FYI I am a Robot'', the RED Turbine Fem!Scout gave the Turbine BLU Medic a thorny rose as a sign of truce despite them being on opposite teams. After he's fired, he leaves the rose behind, making it a TragicKeepsake to remember her long-lost friend.
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* ''Film/AKnightsTale'': William's beloved sends her maidservant to give him a handkerchief to wear in the games as a token along with a message that her name, that he so desperately wanted to know, is Jocelyn. [[spoiler:He loses that particular round to the BigBad, who picks up the favour and returns it to Jocelyn.]]

** In the BackStory, Ser Jorah Mormont once won a tournament while wearing a lady's favour. After their marriage, he went broke supporting his new wife's extravagant tastes and losing armour and horses in every tourney he entered afterwards; he later resorted to selling poachers to slavers which leads to his exile.
** Another example from the BackStory. Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish begged Catelyn Tully for her favour (a scarf with the sigil of her house embroidered onto it) before setting off to duel for her hand in marriage, but she gave it to his opponent, Brandon Stark, instead because she regarded it as her duty to support the man [[ArrangedMarriage to whom she was promised]]. Naturally, Littlefinger lost...
* ''Literature/TalesOfDunkAndEgg''. In "The Sworn Sword", Lady Rohanne Webber is a FieryRedhead who wears her hair in a single long plait which she plays with coquettishly while flirting with Dunk. At the end of the story after much BelligerentSexualTension, Dunk refuses her offer of a fine steed, but cuts off her braid so he'll have something to remember her.

** [[RuleOfSymbolism Symbolically]] invoked by Casca, who [[FromDressToDressing cuts a strip of cloth from her shirt sleeve to bandage Guts' left arm]] exactly where a knight would traditionally display his lady's colors. [[spoiler:Unfortunately he cuts that arm off during the Eclipse in a failed last ditch attempt to stop Casca being raped by a demon.]]

* ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'': Winry gives Ed some earrings to look after. It's actually for a practical reason (she's going to a place where metal in her ears would be a health hazzard), but it's clearly intended to hint at this trope.

** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'': The novel by Creator/YoshiyukiTomino has a very... messed up version of this. Kai tells Amuro that it's an old military tradition for a soldier to get a "talisman", a good-luck charm from the woman he loves, to ensure his survival. The talisman contains [[spoiler:[[{{Squick}} some of her pubic hair]]]]. When Amuro asks Sayla, she initially refuses, but relents just before he launches for the final battle. [[spoiler:It doesn't work.]] The novel provides subtle hints that Kai's being an [[JerkAss asshole]] and making the whole thing up so he can trick Amuro into saying "[[spoiler:Hey Sayla, can I have some of your pubes as a good luck charm?]]" then laugh at the inevitable response.

** ''Manga/MobileSuitGundamThunderbolt'': Karla Mitchem places her scrunchy on one of Daryl Lorenz's prosthetic arms before he sorties [[spoiler:in the Psycho Zaku. Becomes a TragicKeepsake when the stresses of the ensuing battle causes her to suffer a mental breakdown and regress to a childlike mental state.]]

* ''Anime/{{Windaria}}'': Marie gives Alan a precious heirloom she inherited from her father before he leaves. It's a dagger, and meant for practical use but the sentiment is definitely there.

* Played straight and gender flipped in the same moment in the ''FanFic/ElementalChessTrilogy''. It's revealed in the second story that [[Manga/FullmetalAlchemist 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.
* In a ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'' fic ''Fanfic/TheVow'', Lord Shen leaves days before his wedding for an unspecified affair ([[spoiler:a mass murder of pandas [[ScrewDestiny as the means to quell the prophecy]] of him being defeated by a "Warrior of Black and White"]]). His bride Lady Lianne gives him a wedding gift in the form of an ornamental dagger that has red pictures of a phoenix and a dragon etched into it. Touched that his pacifistic beloved has went against her values that much for him, Shen vows to keep the blade till his last breath and promises to return for their wedding day. During his thirty years in exile, he [[TragicKeepsake preserves the blade]] even though his wedding with Lianne wasn't completed and he wrongly believes her to have moved past him. Near the ending, [[spoiler:when Shen is defeated as per canon, he loses the blade, which is retrieved by the Soothsayer and delivered to Lianne. The sight of the wedding gift from which Shen vowed never to part functions as the ultimate proof to the heartbroken Lianne that her newlywed husband and the father of her unborn child is dead, but fortunately [[SparedByTheAdaptation Shen]] returns to her the same night and remains in her life afterwards]].

* In ''[[Literature/TalesOfTheBranionRealm The Stone Prince]]'', Demnor carries a strip of cloth from the tunic of his gay lover -- while on his way to an event where his [[ArrangedMarriage future bride]] will be present. Suffice to say he is ''very'' stubborn.

* "The Devils of Langenhagen," a short story by Australian sci-fi author Sean [=McMullen=]. In the last days of the Third Reich, an [=Me262=] interceptor squadron is visited by some strange and elegant guests -- a couple of high-ranking pilots, and their wives, [[ChangedMyJumper with unusually clean clothes and flying advanced fighter aircraft]]. One of the women sleeps with the protagonist, a teenaged fighter pilot, and when he shamefacedly admits to never having had sex before, she leaves the "virgin killer" her hankerchief in an evocation of this trope. Years later having kept the hankerchief (he's a bit embarrassed about this, as he's now a priest) an analysis of the hankerchief reveals embedded future technology that proves the strangers were time travelers.
* ''Literature/JourneyToChaos'': It's tradition for jousters of either gender to recieve something like this from their lovers/spouses etc. During ''A Mage's Power'', the fact that Culmus is given one by Kasile is a ChekhovsGun that enables a RescueArc later on. It ultimately ends up in Eric's possession, but he's solidly in a LikeBrotherAndSister relationship with the princess.

* ''Series/{{Highlander}}'': As Duncan is about to head out for his final showdown with Kalas[[note]] Kalas is one of the few Immortals who can give Duncan on his best day a run for his money, and is now threatening to release a database of all Immortal identities if Duncan doesn't surrender his head to Kalas, so there's every reason to believe in-universe that Duncan's not going to come back[[/note]], Amanda mentions this precise custom (she's old enough to have been around when it was common practice). She gives Duncan the crystal Rebecca gave her. Doubly meaningful, as both Duncan and Amanda had great respect for Rebecca, the crystal is a tangible part of Amanda's bond with Rebecca as student and teacher, and it's the last thing Amanda has to remember her departed mentor by. And true to the rest of the trope, this set of episodes marks the start of Duncan and Amanda admitting to each other than they're more than each other's "bad habits."

* In the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "Rivals", a friendly racquetball rivalry between Chief O'Brien and Dr. Bashir results in a charity match between the two, with Bashir as the heavy favorite. As O'Brien prepares for the match, his wife Keiko, who had previously been mildly amused by her husband's obsessing over beating Bashir, stands behind him, assuming the attitude of a samurai's wife preparing her husband for battle. She then presents him with a silk scarf scented with her perfume, wraps the scarf around his head, kisses him and whispers, "Kick his butt."

* In ''Series/{{Poldark}}'', Elizabeth gave Ross her ring to wear and and promised to [[IWillWaitForYou wait for him]] when he went off to fight in the [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution American War of Independence]]. When he comes back he is heartbroken to find that she believed him dead and is now engaged to his cousin, Francis.

** The first episode of ''Blood and Sand'' has an inversion of sorts; before he leaves to go to war, Spartacus gives his wife Sura a purple ribbon, as a promise he will come back to her. It later becomes a TragicKeepsake for him after Sura is forcibly separated from him and later killed, after they’re both MadeASlave.

** In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII,'' if Fenris or Isabela is [[PlayerCharacter Hawke's]] love interest, they start wearing a red band on their wrist / forearm. WordOfGod has confirmed this is Hawke's favor.
** In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'', Josephine and Blackwall have a CourtlyLove thing going on for a while, and she takes to leaving handkerchiefs where he can find them.

* Played with in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII''. Balthier the sky pirate ''demands'' payment from Ashe, and takes her engagement ring - the one she received from her now-dead husband. He tells her he'll give it back to her when he finds something more valuable. At the end of the game, [[spoiler:Balthier is believed dead in the wreck of the ''Bahamut'', but Vaan and Penelo discover his airship gone and an envelope containing the ring and a letter which explains he's found something more valuable (an allusion to the sequel, Revenant Wings). The ring was important to an ''entirely different person'', and was never meant to act as The Ladys Favour, but ends up doing so anyway.]]

* The ''Machinima/CultOfPersonality'' series has a platonic example. After surviving the robot invasion in ''FYI I am a Robot'', the RED Turbine Fem!Scout gave the Turbine BLU Medic a thorny rose as a sign of truce despite them being on opposite teams. After he's fired, he leaves the rose behind, making it a TragicKeepsake to remember her long lost friend.

* A platonic variant occurs in ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry3''. When [[PlayerCharacter Dante]] bests [[ActionGirl Lady]] after they argue over who's going to kill [[BigBad Arkham]], Lady gives Dante her rocket launcher [[ICallItVera "Kalina Ann"]] to help him.

* ''Manga/SquibFeelingBlue'': Kajika gives Yuga Kureha, just before he leaves to duel Fujisaki. She still thinks the duel is about Fujisaki's sister, not her.