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10[[quoteright:350:[[Series/StargateSG1 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/baal_clones_dead_3.png]]]]
11[[caption-width-right:350:Needless to say, his "life of the party" reputation took a huge hit.]]
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16
17->''"Explain to me why it is more noble to kill ten thousand men in battle than a dozen at dinner."''
18-->-- '''Tywin Lannister''', ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''
19
20A person or group of people are invited to a social gathering -- a party, banquet, or any other form of get-together. However, it's just an excuse to get them all together and kill them.
21
22An OldDarkHouse is an ideal place to pull this off.
23
24In RealLife, this is literally one of TheOldestTricksInTheBook -- it's been played countless times since the beginning of history. It has also always been considered as an especially ruthless and evil thing to do, as it is the ultimate violation of SacredHospitality -- transgressing against the latter is frowned upon even by warlike cultures and usually but not always crosses the MoralEventHorizon. It is much more acceptable when the invited ones are [[PayEvilUntoEvil all guilty of horrific crimes]] and do not even know who the host is, as there is not even the matter of betrayed trust at hand. It's a classic nevertheless, because, after all, it is also very effective and convenient.
25
26A subtrope of LuredIntoATrap and often of the DecapitationStrike. Compare ReunionRevenge, AFeteWorseThanDeath, WidowedAtTheWedding, WeddingDeathJuxtaposition, BoardToDeath and TenLittleMurderVictims.
27
28[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Nothing to do with]] the [[UsefulNotes/BritishPoliticalSystem Conservative Party of Great Britain]], occasionally known as "the nasty party" by its critics. Also not to be confused with a ShoddyShindig, where the party merely sucks, but there is nothing murderous about it.
29
30Not to be mistaken with the "Nasty Patty" from ''Franchise/SpongebobSquarepants''.
31
32!!As this is a {{Betrayal Trope|s}} and a {{Death Trope|s}}, [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff unmarked spoilers abound]]. [[Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned Beware]].
33----
34!!Examples:
35
36[[foldercontrol]]
37
38[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
39* The opening chapter of ''Manga/FairyTail'' has a villain who uses magic to trick women into going to a party on his boat, then drugging them and selling them into slavery.
40* ''Anime/LupinIIIPartII'' first episode ("[[Recap/LupinIIIS2E1 The Return of Lupin III]]") features the gang -- including the [[SympatheticInspectorAntagonist Inspector Zenigata]] -- reuniting after they all get invitations to a cruise ship. Unfortunately, it turns out to be a ploy by a former criminal mastermind who's out to get revenge on Lupin.
41* In ''Manga/MaidenRose'', the introduction to the first real villain, Princess Theodora, has her eating a nice dinner with her cabinet ministers on their private train. Or rather, she's eating and they're lying dead on the table after ingesting a little too much poison. Apparently the dinner party was "rather boring".
42* To an extent, Mewtwo from ''Anime/PokemonTheFirstMovie''. He sends several invitations to his IslandBase for trainers in what appears to be a challenge from the world's best trainer, but it's just a ruse to take the Pokémon to use for his cloning machine (the logic being that the trainers who made it to the island had the strongest Pokémon). Once his plan his complete, he decides to spare his "guests" to give them preparation for their eventual deaths at his hands.
43* The "Murderer Party" arc of ''Manga/{{Murcielago}}'' centers around a man named Satori Hyoue who has invited several criminals, including the protagonist, to a party in order to murder them all.
44* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', going to one of Big Mom's tea parties is usually a ''lot'' more pleasant than what she'll do to you if you refuse to go. However, during the Whole Cake Island Arc, where the party was supposed to cement an alliance between her and [[TheSyndicate the Vinsmoke family]], she was actually planning to assassinate them. The plan was foiled because Sanji (who was to be married to Pudding at the party [[ArrangedMarriage as part of the deal)]] overheard the plan beforehand. Of course, Vinsmoke Judge and Capone Bege were both planning - independently - to do so to her at the party; the good guys prevailed because the bad guys [[EvilVersusEvil were too concerned with each other]].
45* ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'' plays with the trope; the party isn't specifically to kill the participants, but the more people that gather there, the less likely it is that someone important will die in the summoning of an ancient witch.
46* A variation of this is shown in the ''Anime/XxxHolic'' movie, although the host doesn't kill them, he simply "collects" them.
47[[/folder]]
48
49[[folder:Comic Books]]
50* ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'': The massacre at the Bar With No Name during the original "Scourge of the Underworld" storyline, where eighteen villains were murdered, was a variation on this, except that the host wasn't behind it. The villains had met there to discuss the danger that Scourge posed, and because they knew at this point that he was a MasterOfDisguise, they doubled down on security, had everyone searched before entering, and they all checked their weapons at the door. Unfortunately, Scourge had disguised himself as the bartender, and no-one ever thought to search him, leaving them all vulnerable when he made his attack, gunning them all down.
51* In ''ComicBook/HackSlash'', Laura Lochs decides to wipe out a beach party full of kids on spring break as [[StrawmanPolitical a protest against sexual permissiveness]].
52* At least two ''ComicBook/ThePunisher'' stories involved this. In one, a group of [[CorruptCorporateExecutive corrupt corporate executives]] have a party on a yacht and are killed by Frank Castle, via blowing up their boat with some C4. Another story involved Frank killing a group of gangsters by poisoning the soup they all eat at the dinner.
53* In the Creator/ECComics ''Shock [=SuspenStory=]'' "Just Desserts!", a man holds a dinner party for the nanny whose negligence led to his son's accidental death, the business partner who defrauded him into ruin, the aunt who refused to bail him out of bankruptcy, and his wife and her lover who were carrying on behind his back. It ends with a SplashPanel showing all the guests seated at the dinner table as [[https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vJKfsYPDwi0/WIFeTKbFOFI/AAAAAAAANwU/SKCrHI4o2KsLOhzhHPANGNkfotGBUbWkQCLcB/s1600/Shock%2BSuspenStories%2B%25233%2B-%2BPage%2B9.jpg decapitated corpses.]]
54* In ''ComicBook/WhiteSand'', all Sand Masters are poisoned at the graduation, utilizing the fact that all the most powerful Mastrells drink from the same cup as part of the ceremony.
55[[/folder]]
56
57[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]
58* In ''Film/AdeleHasntHadHerDinnerYet'', Baron von Kratzmar invites Professor Bocek and his granddaughter for tea and to watch the feeding of a carnivorous plant. What the Baron didn't say is that... Adele is a ManEatingPlant and Professor Bocek is to be her first course. Kvetuska, the granddaughter, will be violated by the Baron's servant and then sold to a South American brothel.
59* The movie version of ''Film/{{Clue}}''. With the twist that one of the guests, and not the host, is doing the killing except in the "true" ending, where it turns out that ''all'' the guests save one and the host himself are murderers: they were invited by Mr. Boddy for the express purpose of killing his informants, conveniently cleaning up any evidence against him ''and'' ensuring they all had at least one new skeleton in the closet for Mr. Boddy to blackmail them for. Then it turns out that the ''one'' guest who was actually innocent is actually a federal agent, and he kills Mr. Boddy just as the cavalry arrives.
60* In ''Film/{{Coherence}}'', a party for friends quickly goes wrong when alternate universes cause them terror.
61* In ''Film/TheEndless'', two brothers, former members of a cult, are invited back under the pretense of a reunion. Even when they agree to go, the brothers wonder if they're walking into a trap.
62* In ''Film/TheFinal'', a group of outcast students invite the bullies and snobs who have tormented them throughout high school to a costume party. It's not because they want to play Pin The Tail On The Donkey.
63%%* TheMafia movie ''Film/TheGodfather''.
64* In ''Film/HellraiserHellworld'' the villain simply known as [[OnlyKnownByTheirNickname the Host]] hosts a ''Hellworld'' party and invites the friends of his son Adam, who he blames for Adam's death, to the festivities. While the group are partying the Host drugs them, buries them alive and starts manipulating their perception of reality via messages sent through cellphones to [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve make them believe (the thought fictional) Pinhead and Cenobites are killing them, causing them to die in real life from such things as heart attacks and self-inflicted wounds]].
65* In the remake of ''Film/{{House on Haunted Hill|1999}}'', the ghosts alter the guest list of the Prices' party in order to gather the descendants of their murderers into the house to be tortured and killed.
66* ''Film/InglouriousBasterds'' features a Nasty Nazi Party where Shoshanna plans to kill the German high command by burning down her movie theater while they're in it.
67* In ''Film/TheInvitation2015'', a man is invited by his ex-wife to the house they once shared for a dinner party. The already tense situation escalates when the hosts become demanding and start to reveal their real (culty) motivations.
68* ''Film/IStillKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer'' has the villain Benjamin Willis concocting a convoluted plot to kill the heroine Julie and her friends; first he has his son Will befriend Julie, then he has a fake radio contest in which Julie's friend Karla "wins" tickets to an island in the Bahamas, and while the group are on the island Willis starts taking out all the remaining employees so he can have Julie all to himself. Of course, things don't work out.
69* In ''Film/TheManTheyCouldNotHang'', Dr. Savaard invites the surviving members of the jury who convicted him, along with the others he blames for his execution, to his mansion. The place cards for their dinner places list the order in which they will die, and the exact time it will occur.
70* ''Film/NoTimeToDie'': The imprisoned Blofeld arranges a birthday party for himself in Cuba, attended by most members of Spectre, and lures Film/JamesBond to it so that, as the high point of the festivities, he can be killed with a nanotech virus weapon programmed to recognise him by his DNA. Unfortunately for Spectre, the MadScientist who created and programmed the nanotech is secretly working for Blofeld's rival DiabolicalMastermind Lyutsifer Safin, and instead programs the nanotech to kill all the Spectre members and spare Bond, combining this trope with MakeWayForTheNewVillains.
71* In ''Film/RobinAndTheSevenHoods'', Gisborne has Big Jim gunned down by the assembled gangsters of Chicago at his own birthday party.
72* In ''Film/RoguesOfSherwoodForest'', King John invites several of the barons to a banquet. Robin Hood attempts to warn them that it is a trap, but they ignore him. At the banquet, King John has his archers shoot them IntheBack and then dumps the bodies outside the castle in an attempt to [[FrameUp frame Robin hood for the murders]]. However, one of the barons, Fitzwilliam, is NotQuiteDead and survives to clear Robin's name and rouse the remaining barons against John.
73* ''Film/SomeLikeItHot'': The hotel hosts a conference for "Friends of Italian Opera", which is in fact a major meeting of the national crime syndicate, presided over by "Little Bonaparte". "Little Bonaparte" has Spats and his men killed at the banquet.
74* One of the stories in ''Film/TrickRTreat'' has a group of gorgeous college girls blowing into town on Halloween night and throwing a party out in the woods. Meanwhile, a mysterious man who appears to be a vampire is stalking the youngest of the girls, setting up a clear SlasherMovie plot. Then it turns out that all the girls - including the one who had been set up as the FinalGirl - are werewolves, who have eaten all their guests, and the vampire - who is actually a mundane SerialKiller with [[ScoobyDooHoax fake fangs]] - realizes that he [[BullyingADragon picked the wrong target.]]
75* In ''Film/TruthOrDare2012'', young British boys and girls travel to an isolated cabin after being promised a night of heavy partying. Instead of the fun they hoped for, they meet a killer out to reap vengeance on them for the death of his brother.
76[[/folder]]
77
78[[folder:Literature]]
79* The premise behind Creator/AgathaChristie's ''Literature/AndThenThereWereNone''.
80* This is how the dictator gets rid of all his rivals in Creator/GabrielGarciaMarquez's ''Literature/TheAutumnOfThePatriarch''.
81* ''Literature/TheBartimaeusTrilogy'' by Creator/JonathanStroud features more than one scheme of this type.
82* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/{{Carrie}}'' (and its assorted [[Film/{{Carrie1976}} film adaptations]] and [[Film/Carrie2013 remake]]), the [[HighSchoolDance senior prom]] gets turned into a non-fatal version of this (at least, [[BullyingADragon such was intended]]) by the AlphaBitch Chris Hargensen and her friends when they stage a prank to humiliate Carrie White. They rig the ballots for prom king and queen so that she and her date Tommy win, putting her in a position to get a bucket of pig blood dumped on her head in front of the entire school. Even before Carrie goes on her RoaringRampageOfRevenge, the bucket winds up inadvertently hitting Tommy in the head, either killing him or leaving him badly concussed.
83* ''Literature/ConanTheBarbarian''. In one story, he starts a fight in the middle of a victory feast, wiping out the warriors of the tribe they were allied with but no longer need to. Apparently, this form of betrayal is a local tradition and thus not dishonorable (Conan's men were simply faster to act).
84* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
85** A strategy supposed to have been used by some Pictsie clans. Always seems to fail because everybody gets too drunk to carry the plan out effectively.
86** Referenced as a strategy in ''Literature/InterestingTimes''. However, Cohen points out it would not be appropriate for their situation, as they are up against 700,000 enemy soldiers. He also notes at great length that he would never use poison; his preferred method is to get everyone drunk and then cut their heads off. One of Cohen's fellow octogenarian barbarians says they could still pull it off, if they did something simple for dinner, "like pasta". Apparently the barbarians don't consider this tactic to be dirty or dishonorable at all since anyone stupid enough to fall for [[TheOldestTricksInTheBook the ol' "invite them to a feast, get them drunk and slaughter them" trick]] was definitely TooDumbToLive anyway.
87* ''Literature/TheDivineComedy'': In the ''Inferno'', Dante places "traitors against their guests"--i.e. hosts who break hospitality--in the third round of the ninth circle of Hell (i.e. the third-worst place, after the fourth round of the ninth circle and the three mouths of Satan chewing on Judas, Brutus, and Cassius). The third round features the story of Fra Alberigo, who invited his brother and nephew (with whom he was quarreling) to dinner and then had them killed (the signal being calling for fruit).
88* Used in the ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' book ''Literature/GravePeril'', in which the leader of Chicago's vampires invites everyone she hates to a party so she can kill them all. This was incredibly risky as SacredHospitality is ''very'' important in the supernatural circles and breaching it would be construed as an act of war. She planned to force Harry a SadisticChoice of either breaching her hospitality (so she could kill him without any political backlash) or allowing her to kill an innocent in a manner that will destroy a powerful anti-evil weapon. She did ''not'' expect him to burn the entire mansion down around her, though her death still ultimately sparks a war between her vampire faction and his wizardly council.
89* In the early ''Literature/FearStreet'' novel ''Halloween Party'', several teens are invited to their classmate's titular party. Only one of the guests remains suspicious as to why they specifically were invited when no one else in school was allowed to attend, until it's revealed the host is really a 30 year old woman who wants to kill them all as revenge for their parents causing the deaths of her own mother and father. She manages to kill the kid whose dad drove the car that caused the accident all those years ago, and planned to kill the rest by burning the house down with them trapped. Thankfully the guests escape with help from the woman's uncle and she's stopped from killing herself after her plan's foiled.
90* In the short story "Invitation to a Poisoning" by Creator/PeterTremayne, the villain Nechtan invites all his enemies to dinner and then poisons [[MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning himself]] since he believes that he is dying of cancer and would like to frame one or more of his enemies for his murder. Inviting the heroine, who happens to be a professional investigator, to the party proves to be a mistake.
91* In the ''Literature/LeftBehind'' book ''Assassins'', Pontifex Maximus Peter Mathews of Enigma Babylon One World Faith is invited to a private party hosted by the ten regional subpotentates of the Global Community to show him a massive ice sculpture made in his honor. However, in playing out what the Literature/BookOfRevelation says about the "[[http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rev%2017:16-17&version=KJV whore that sits on the beast]]", the ten subpotentates use that party as a united opportunity to kill Peter Mathews with [[FeatherFlechettes sharp ice feathers from the sculpture]], eventually causing Enigma Babylon to fold with the Pontifex Maximus' death and to soon be replaced with Carpathianism following Nicolae Carpathia's death and "resurrection".
92* The climax of Creator/VictorHugo's ''Literature/LucreziaBorgia'' has the title character, a notorious poisoner, setting up one of these for the nobles who turned Gennaro, whom they did not recognize as her son, against her. Unfortunately, Gennaro is among the attendees at the party and tragedy quickly ensues.
93* Mentioned in ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew'' by [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Jadis]] as to how one of her ancestors dealt with supposedly rebellious nobles.
94-->'''Jadis:''' This was the old banqueting hall where my great-grandfather bade seven hundred nobles to a feast and killed them all before they had drunk their fill. They had had rebellious thoughts.
95* In ''Literature/MaidenCrown'', Valdemar and his co-ruler Knud are ambushed at a peace banquet, which was a trap set by their mutual enemy Svend. Knud is murdered in the ensuing battle, the Bloodfeast of Roskilde, while Valdemar barely escapes (and is initially assumed to be dead). Svend is later defeated and killed in battle against Valdemar, who becomes the sole king of Denmark.
96* ''Literature/TheMartianChronicles'': In "Usher II", Stendhal and Pikes construct Stendahl's image of the perfect haunted mansion, complete with mechanical creatures, creepy soundtracks, and thousands of tons of poison to kill every living thing in the surrounding area. They then invite the [[MoralGuardians Moral Climate Monitors]] to visit and kill each of them in ways that allude to different horror masterpieces.
97* ''Literature/PointHorror'' has an initially non-fatal version of this in ''The Invitation'', where the [[AlphaBitch Alpha Bitch]] invites five rather unpopular students to her annual party but intends to use them in her people hunt party game. [[spoiler: It doesn't stay non-fatal however as a gate crasher sneaks the protagonists to different locations and rigs them so they will die slowly. The three who succumb are saved and taken to hospital but it's left unclear if they survive.]]
98* In Creator/JohnChristopher's post-apocalyptic young-adult novel ''The Prince In Waiting'', the protagonist's father (ruler of the city where the action is set) is invited to a gathering and murdered.
99* Done several times in ''Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms''. Notable ones include Cai Mao's attempt on Liu Bei (unsuccessful), Zhuge Liang drugging a number of Nanman soldiers (they had been planning on using the banquet to make a surprise attack), and Zhou Yu's attempt on Liu Bei (also unsuccessful, as Liu Bei was accompanied by Guan Yu).
100* In ''Saga'' by Creator/ConorKostick, there is a nasty party with tiers. As each successive group of nobles is killed in creative ways (poison, being glued down and stabbed....), the remaining clever ones who think themselves in the know have a good laugh. Eventually there are only three left, two of whom are killed by the only person left who really knew what was going on.
101* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' has a severe case of shindig + politics = murder. Here are most of them:
102** Edmure Tully's wedding gains the moniker "The Red Wedding" for this very reason. In revenge for a political slight and open treason (respectively), Walder Frey and Tywin Lannister arrange to have Robb, Catelyn, and a large percentage of their bannermen slaughtered at the reception, with the [[TheStarscream treacherous Northern Lord]] Roose Bolton personally murdering Robb. This is considered especially shocking as all cultures respect SacredHospitality and as a result, nearly everybody in the Seven Kingdoms despises the [[TheFriendNobodyLikes Freys]].
103** Later in the same book, Lady Olenna Redwyne (probably, the culprit is not explicit) murders Joffrey at his own wedding, framing Tyrion for the act. She was motivated as Joffrey was a {{Sadist}}ic [[TheCaligula King]] who was marrying her granddaughter and his death means his kinder and weaker-willed brother Tommen succeeds.
104** There is also the Dothraki party in Vaes Dothrak. Viserys turns up drunk and threatens his pregnant sister Daenerys, telling her husband Khal Drogo he was promised an army to take back the Seven Kingdoms, and mocking them as they can't use weapons or shed blood in the city. Drogo promises Viserys a crown of gold and pours molten gold over his head.
105** [[BastardBastard Ramsay Bolton's]] wedding to "Arya Stark" (really Jeyne Poole, who is being forced into this role to help the Boltons hold the North) begins becoming this. The Northern Houses hate the Freys present due to the Red Wedding, and [[TenLittleMurderVictims people keep turning up dead]]. Also the three Freys travelling with Lord Wyman Manderly from White Harbor, who lost one of his sons at the Red Wedding with the Freys lying and claiming Robb Stark murdered his son, have disappeared, though Wyman brings three [[TheSecretOfLongPorkPies pies]] which he serves to the Freys and Boltons and [[ImAHumanitarian eats with gusto]]. When he insults the Freys on Little Walder Frey's death, Little Walder's uncle Hosteen Frey tries to kill him, leading to a fight in which Frey and Manderly men die. Lord Bolton is forced to send the Frey and Manderly men out of Winterfell against Stannis Baratheon.
106** Over two centuries prior to the story [[TheEvilPrince Maegor the Cruel]] had all the architects for the Red Keep murdered at a banquet to protect its secrets. There are rumors one of them escaped and later murdered Maegor, though it is more likely Maegor killed himself on hearing of his nephew's rebellion against him.
107* Admiral Daala of the ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' fame didn't want to do this at first; she sincerely hoped that the Imperial warlords, whom she invited to a council at Tsoss Beacon, will cooperate and stop their ChronicBackstabbingDisorder. However, they didn't, so Daala picked the OnlySaneMan, Captain Pellaeon, and killed the rest with poison gas.
108* OlderThanFeudalism: Creator/{{Xenophon}} records at least two:
109** In one the ''Literature/{{Anabasis}}'', the commanders of the army of ten thousand Greek mercenaries were invited to a banquet by their supposed Persian collaborator, Tissaphernes. He kills them, leaving the army leaderless (until a [[SneezeOfDoom sneeze]] inspires them to elect new officers and march back to Greece).
110** In ''The Education of Cyrus'', he indicates that Astyages (Cyrus' Mede maternal grandfather), attempting to seek revenge on his brother Harpagus, lured Harpagus' son to a banquet, killed him, and then fed Harpagus his son's flesh at the banquet. [[TooDumbToLive Then, in a truly inspired move, Astyages gave Harpagus command of an army sent to kill Cyrus.]] Instead, when they met, Harpagus joined forces with Cyrus to bring Astyages down.
111[[/folder]]
112
113[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
114* The ''Series/{{Angel}}'' episode "[[Recap/AngelS01E07BachelorParty Bachelor Party]]" had a bachelor party where the groom and his family were planning to eat Doyle's brains. (Long story.)
115* ''Series/TheAvengers1960s'' episode "The Superlative Seven" has the eponymous seven thinking they've been invited to a costume party. It's not.
116* In the ''Series/BreakingBad'' episode "[[Recap/BreakingBadS4E10Salud Salud]]", there's a variation where the plotters are invited to a party put on by the host, [[TheDon Don Eladio]], who is a target of the invitees, along with his other Cartel guests. Everyone at the party but Gus (the plotter) and the accompanying Mike and Jesse are poisoned, with one Cartel henchman who didn't partake of the poisoned drinks garroted by Mike in the confusion of all the bodies dropping dead.
117* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': In "Party Down," a killer locks 20 party goers in the back of a tractor trailer truck and deliberately drives it into the Hudson River. Fortunately only four people drown while the rest escape through a shoddily welded hatch.
118* The new ''Series/DoctorWho'':
119** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E2TheEndOfTheWorld The End of the World]]", Cassandra attempts to create a hostage situation and position him/herself as one of the hostages. When that fails, he/she attempts to kill everyone in order to benefit from shares that he/she owned in their competitors. It is referred to in this episode as "the [[ArcWords Bad Wolf]] scenario".
120** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E12TheSoundOfDrums The Sound of Drums]]" sees The Master, in the guise of newly-elected Prime Minister Mr. Saxon, calling a meeting of all his Cabinet ministers just to gas them to death.
121* ''Series/FatherBrown'': In "The Crackpot of the Empire", Father Brown is one of the guests invited to a 'Welcome Home' party being held for a comedian recently released from an insane asylum. However, the invitations were fake and someone starts picking off the guests one by one.
122* In ''Series/GameOfThrones'', the Red Wedding (as it is known in the book series source material) happens near the end of Season 3, and is just as vividly brutal as it is in the books.
123* In ''Series/PeakyBlinders''' second season, the partly-[[RoguishRomani Romani]] Shelby crime family form an alliance with [[KosherNostra the Jewish gang]] who run Camden Town against [[TheMafia the Sabini Family]], and, as a diplomatic nicety, Shelby boss Thomas sends his brother Arthur to attend a ''seder'' hosted by the Jewish kingpin, Alfie Solomons. Arthur goes in good faith, keen to learn about the history of another "persecuted race", but at the height of the Passover story, Alfie declares war against "the King of the Egyptians, Tommy Shelby" [[note]]This is a reference to an old myth that Romani people originated from Egypt, hence the pejorative "gypsy"[[/note]] and reveals that he has formed a new alliance with Sabini. Arthur's retinue are killed and he is arrested under false pretenses. Even when Alfie switches sides ''again'' (dismissing the betrayal as NothingPersonal) Arthur never really trusts him again.
124* One early ''Series/RemingtonSteele'' case started when a plastic surgeon shot himself to death while holding an invitation to an island resort's exclusive grand opening weekend. Laura and Steele pose as the physician and his nurse to attend the party, and soon the rest of the guests start dying off one by one.
125* ''Series/StargateSG1'': Ba'al, the only System Lord who survived the demise of the Goa'uld Empire, had himself cloned multiple times afterwards. Later on, as part of a plot to pull a GrandTheftMe on the current BigBad Adria, he gathered all of his remaining clones for a meeting and had them killed off with anti-Goa'uld poison gas. Although, with Ba'al's paranoia, it's little surprise that several of them didn't show (including the original) and continued to wreak havoc in ''Film/StargateContinuum''.
126* The ''Series/TalesFromTheCrypt'' episode "[[Recap/TalesFromTheCryptS6E11SurpriseParty Surprise Party]]" features a house party whose attendants turn out to be ghosts of the party-goers who died in a house fire that was instigated by the owner of the house after said owner [[FieryCoverUp started the fire to cover up his murder of one party guest]] who he killed in an altercation and one other guest [[LeaveNoWitnesses due to the other murdered guest witnessing the initial murder]]. [[GhostlyGoals They have intended to kill the house owner to avenge themselves should he return]], but, after encountering the owner's son, who had not only murdered his father and burned his will upon learning that the owner had planned to donate the plot of land where the burned house is and put his desire of donation in the will but [[LikeFatherLikeSon acts the same way the owner did under the same circumstance in the house party up to instigating a]] FieryCoverUp as well, [[SinsOfOurFathers they settle for the owner's son as their revenge target instead]] by [[KillItWithFire burning him alive]].
127* ''Series/{{Vikings}}'':
128** Ragnar pulls this on Jarl Borg. He declares that he wants to end the feud with Jarl Borg and invites him to a peace meeting. Borg brings a sizable force of bodyguards with him but Ragnar's men trap them in a house and kill them all. Borg is then executed via Blood Eagle.
129** Horik tries to pull this on his ally Ragnar after he becomes worried that Ragnar will use his popularity to usurp Horik as king. He comes to Ragnar's village under the pretext of arranging marriages between his daughters and Ragnar's sons. However, he also lands a large group of warriors in a remote bay and they then march to attack the village at night after everyone has tired from the festivities and has gone to sleep. However, Ragnar has figured out Horik's plan long ago and Horik's men walk into a trap where they're killed, and then Horik's family is slaughtered.
130* ''Series/WhodunnitUK'': In "Final Verdict", the eight surviving members of a jury who sentenced a man to life imprisonment are invited to a dinner party on the 20th anniversary of the day they delivered the verdict. However, one of them is the killer in disguise and announces (via tape recording) that all of them will die unless they can identify the imposter.
131* ''Series/YoungDracula'':
132** The Count invites his mortal neighbours to a 'Hunt Ball', with them not realising they are to become the prey for the vampire guests at the end of the night's festivities.
133** The Carpathian Feast, where one vampire is roasted to death at the end of the evening. It's used by the Count to kill [[LoveInterest Erin]].
134[[/folder]]
135
136[[folder:Music]]
137* "[[Music/TheBirthdayMassacre I wore my black and white dress to the birthday massacre, birthday massacre, birthday, I wore my black and white dress...]]" By the end of the song, said "black and white dress" has become a "black and red dress"...
138[[/folder]]
139
140[[folder:Mythology and Religion]]
141* ''Literature/TheBible'':
142** In [[Literature/BooksOfSamuel 2nd Samuel chapter 13]], Absalom invites his half-brother Amnon to a private party, only to have him killed by his servants as revenge for the rape of his biological sister Tamar.
143** In [[Literature/BooksOfKings 2nd Kings 10:18-28]], Jehu son of Jehoshaphat purposely had a group of Baal worshipers assemble together in the house of Baal for a solemn ceremony, claiming that he wants to worship Baal, but his real purpose was to have all the Baal worshipers slain, thus getting rid of Baal worship in the northern kingdom of Israel.
144* The [[Myth/EgyptianMythology ancient Egyptian]] tale of Osiris' death inverts this by featuring a party with one victim and 74 murderers. [[TheResenter Set]], god of storms and the desert and at the very least [[JerkassGods not a nice guy]],[[note]]Not necessarily ''[[GodOfEvil evil]]'', although some versions of the mythology have it so[[/note]] decides he's tired of always being in his brother's shadow, and it's time for a nice little round of [[CainAndAbel fratricide]]. He and his human mistress Aso, Queen of Ethiopia, quickly find a whopping 72 other gods who also want to see Osiris go down. To this end, they hold a grand where the only guests not in on the plot are Osiris himself, his wife Isis, and Set's innocent and long-suffering wife Nephthys, and trick Osiris into a coffin that Set and his friends seal with boiling lead. This backfires on Set, of course; Osiris comes BackFromTheDead.
145* In the apocryphal ''[[Literature/BooksOfMaccabees Book of 1st Maccabees]]'', Ptolemy son of Abubus invited Simon, the last of the Maccabee brothers, to a banquet and there had his soldiers kill Simon, his two sons, and some of their servants while they were drunk.
146* ''Literature/GestaDanorum'' details the story of Amleth, the inspiration for ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'', who avenges the murder of his father by his uncle Fengo. At a memorial feast held on the occasion of Amleth's presumed death, Amleth unexpectedly returns. The rest of the court gets drunk, due to Amleth plying them with drink, and fall asleep. Amleth then pulls tapestries down over them and using hooks he had made earlier with which he claimed he'd avenge his father's death, he fixes the tapestries in place. He then sets the place alight while going off to kill his uncle in a sword-fight, through switching their sword with one fixed in the scabbard.
147* ''Literature/HalfsSaga'': King Asmund invites his stepson Half and his warriors to a banquet with plenty of alcohol. When they are sleeping fast, he has the exits barred and sets fire to the hall.
148* The legendary tradition of Britain, first laid out in the Welsh ''Literature/HistoriaBrittonum'', has it that the Saxon king Hengist, after the Saxons' first quarrel with the Britons had been settled, invited King Vortigern of Britain with three hundred of his nobles to a banquet in celebration of the peace treaty -- only to have them attacked and killed in the middle of the feast, sparing only King Vortigern, who was forced to ransom himself with ceding the Saxons further provinces of Britain. The event is also known as "The Night of Long Knives" and, if it ever happened, would have taken place around 460 AD.
149* In ''Literature/TheHistories'' of Herodotus, Queen Nitocris of Egypt invites a large number of her subjects who were involved in the killing of her brother to a banquet in an underground hall. In the middle of the feast, she has the room locked and flooded through a hidden channel, killing all who are inside.
150* Two dubious medieval sources, ''De Instructione Principus'' by Gerald of Wales and the anonymous ''Prophecy of Berchán'', claim that Kenneth [=MacAlpin=], quasi-legendary first King of Scotland, disposed of the remnants of the Pictish royalty and nobility in this manner, using booby-trapped benches that dumped the sitters into spiked pits.
151* Towards the middle of the ''Literature/{{Nibelungenlied}}'', Siegfried is murdered by his wife's brothers. The widow, Kriemhild, then marries the king of the Huns and invites her brothers and all their retinue to a feast. Unfortunately, they've been forewarned and turn up armed; the result is an all-night bloodbath only brought to a close when the Huns burn down their own hall. Oh, and according to some versions of the story, this leads to a disgusted Hun taking out Kriemhild with a DiagonalCut.
152* Happens no less than three times in the Norse version of the ''Nibelungenleid'', ''Literature/TheSagaOfTheVolsungs'':
153** First, King Siggeir marries Signy, daughter of King Volsung, but is jealous of her twin Sigmund getting a sword he wanted. Siggeir lures King Volsung and his ten sons to him with claims of celebration, but murders Volsung and has the sons chained in a forest to be devoured by a wolf. Only Sigmund survives.
154** In the version of the previously-mentioned incident, Atli, the Hun King, is the one who plots the murder of his wife's brothers. They suspect a trap but go and both die along with their followers.
155** After murdering Atli and their two sons, Gudrun, the equivalent of Kriemhild, burns his fortress down during the funeral supper, killing all his other followers.
156[[/folder]]
157
158[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
159* The majority of the Solar ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' were killed by the Dragon-Blooded in a banquet arranged in the Solars' honor.
160* History books in the ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' D&D setting record that Lord Leo Dilisnya engineered a massacre at the wedding of Sergei von Zarovich, attempting to depose the Von Zaroviches as the reigning noble house of Barovia. Only those in-the-know are aware that the bridal couple and many others really died thanks to Sergei's jealous elder brother, Strahd, who went berserk after his murder of Sergei drove the bride, Tatyana, to suicide rather than into his arms. As the murder also cursed Strahd as a nigh-unstoppable vampire, he probably killed as many or more of the wedding attendees than Leo's assassins in his rage.
161* Pulled off simultaneously with a fake HeelFaceTurn by Drachenfels, the Great Enchanter, in the backstory of ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay''. He ostensibly repented his crimes, and publicly renounced evil, paid large reparations to his living victims, and abased himself at the graves of many others. He managed to gain the trust of Emperor Carolus and invited the whole imperial court for a feast at Castle Drachenfels. However, Drachenfels poisoned his guests, paralysing them. Helpless they saw how their children, which they had brought with them, were tortured. Afterwards, they starved to death with a prepared feast before their eyes.
162[[/folder]]
163
164[[folder:Theater]]
165* Nobody in ''Theatre/AbigailsParty'' is trying to kill anybody, but it ends up being pretty nasty all the same.
166* In ''Theatre/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet'', Benjamin Barker's wife was raped at a party as described in the "Poor Thing" number.
167* In Creator/WilliamShakespeare's ''Theatre/TitusAndronicus'', a Nasty Party forms the climax of this exceptionally bloody early work, which memorably has Titus feed to Tamora [[TheSecretOfLongPorkPies pies containing her sons]], who raped and mutilated his daughter.
168[[/folder]]
169
170[[folder:Video Games]]
171* ''VideoGame/AdventureQuest3D'': Halloween 2021 added the Masquerade of the Macabre to the game. Player characters crash this ball under circumstances leaving them aware from the start that most of the masked nobles in attendance are some form of monster magically disguised as human and that most of the actual humans were invited under the grounds that it's only polite for the important guests to bring food. From the start the official greeter makes no bones about what's going on here or what your assigned role is, and the party is leaving plenty of (not literal, for ratings purposes as commented by the characters) blood on the dance floor. (Some of the {{NPC}}s populating the ball are aligned with the players, so the action parts are an ongoing affair not reliant on player triggering.) The thing is, despite the PC being snarky and self-aware, despite players being naturally more trope-aware, despite a few things being naturally spoiled by the acts of players further along in the questline... it's still hard to anticipate just how nasty a party this one really is, in how many ways and to how many people, without going through the whole extended thing and finding out all the greeter ''wasn't'' initially telling you. [[spoiler: In particular, this party isn't such a great deal for the monsters either...]]
172* In ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'':
173** In [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI the first game]], the assassination of "merchant king" Abu al-Nuqoub takes place at a party where he has poisoned the wine to kill all his guests.
174** In ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII'', Vieri de' Pazzi (Ezio's rival and later assassination target) is said to have served dinners "to die for" to entire families of those who beat him at contests.
175* ''VideoGame/DinnerWithAnOwl'': The entire plot. Where you're trapped in a seemingly endless dinner party...with a man-owl.
176* In ''VideoGame/Dishonored2'', a table of corpses (with one lying next to a toilet) can be found in Dunwall Tower, along with a note describing how [[BigBad Delilah]] is eager to have a meet-and-greet with people who are [[RewardedAsATraitorDeserves so quick to change alliances]].
177* There's a recurring skill book in ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' called "A Game At Dinner," which combines this with a dose of IKnowYouKnowIKnow. It recounts a party held by a noble in a DeadlyDecadentCourt. After the main course, he brings a pot of soup to the table, and informs his guests that he knows some of them to be disloyal, and that he has poisoned the offending parties. In a few minutes they will die an extremely painful death... unless they get the antidote, which is in the soup. After a few nervous minutes, a guest breaks and frantically gobbles down some soup, only for the host to reveal he'd been bluffing to smoke out the traitor, and the only poison in the meal had been ''in the soup itself''. The traitor dies painfully, the other guests sigh in relief, and the narrator reconsiders getting involved in court politics.
178** An assassin quest in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' actually has you taking part in one of these. You get bonuses if no-one realizes you're the killer, and if you play your cards right you can actually get them to kill each other out of paranoia.
179* At the end of Chapter 5 of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'', your ally Arvis appears with a welcoming party to greet Sigurd's army as they enter Belhalla. [[spoiler:Which is the moment when Arvis declares all of them to be traitors. [[TheHeroDies Goodbye, Sigurd]].]]
180* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'' features a madman who invited the entire town to his manor just so he could kill them all. For a one-shot boss, he's quite memorable.
181* Mentioned in the bad ending of the first ''VideoGame/LauraBow'' game.
182* ''VideoGame/PityParty'': Both guests end up being murdered. The rabbit eats a poisoned carrot, and the clown swallows thumbtacks with the cake.
183* The "cake and party" at the end of the testing in ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' turns out to be a pit full of fire the player gets dumped into. [[SpannerInTheWorks Then they get out.]] [[note]]Well, she ''did'' [[ExactWords say]] "First you will be baked, then there will be cake." She didn't claim ''you'' would get any...[[/note]]
184* This is why six of the seven murder victims are in the house in the mystery of ''VideoGame/TheSeventhGuest''.
185* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has the "bloody banquet" (as it is known after the fact), added to the Main Scenario during the last patch of ''A Realm Reborn'' before ''Heavensward''[='=]s release. The Crystal Braves founded by Alphinaud conspire with the Monetarists to dispose of Sultana Nanamo Ul Namo and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn in one fell swoop. Nanamo is poisoned as she confides to the [[PlayerCharacter Warrior of Light]] about her plan to turn Ul'dah into a republic, the Warrior is framed for her assassination, the Scions are declared enemies of Ul'dah by association, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Thancred gets interrupted in the middle of wooing a girl]], and Flame General Raubahn Aldyn gets [[AnArmAndALeg his arm cut off]] by his EvilFormerFriend Ilberd Feare (though he does manage to kill mastermind Teledji Adeledji). The Scions are scattered going into ''Heavensward'', with Yda and Papalymo taking refuge with the Ala Mhigan Resistance, Thancred and Y'shtola bringing down a tunnel and [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique using Flow to escape it]], and Alphinaud and the Warrior seeking refuge in Ishgard. [[spoiler:Ultimately, none of the good guys end up ''dead'' following the banquet, thanks to a GambitPileup between Lolorito Nanarito (acting on behalf of the Monetarists as a whole) and Teledji (acting exclusively on his own self-interest); Nanamo's potion was swapped for a sleeping draught in advance, and the Scions manage to avoid getting captured before their names are cleared.]]
186[[/folder]]
187
188[[folder:Webcomics]]
189* ''Webcomic/EveryoneIsHome'': One arc has Sephiroth appear to have a HeelFaceTurn after taking one too many blows to the head, culminating in him cooking a feast for Kazuya's welcoming party... which turns out to have been poisoned, killing everyone. Kazuya arrives to a house full of corpses (and Incineroar, [[ItMakesSenseInContext who'd been locked in the basement]]), kick-starting a ''very'' lengthy arc in which the two of them set out to revive everyone.
190* ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' has the [[http://sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/091012 "Displacement"]] StoryArc, where a MadScientist holds an auction for his Displacement Drive Vehicle. He's not actually interested in selling it; he just knows that anyone who wants to steal the Displacement Drive will try doing so at the auction. So, by killing everyone who shows up, he guarantees its safety! Too bad a lot of the bidders are also {{Mad Scientist}}s and supervillains who don't take too kindly to this plan.
191* ''Webcomic/{{Unsounded}}'': General Bell plots to have the queen and several other high ranking politicians that are decent enough to protest or go against his plan to overthrow the queen, crown himself king and reorganize the government to his liking by having them all killed in a military strike during Treenahin celebrations which is why he's the only member of the Council of Four not attending the Treenahin celebrations in Grenzlan.
192[[/folder]]
193
194[[folder:Western Animation]]
195* Subverted in "The Creeps" episode of ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime''. The protagonists are invited to a dark, spooky castle (which is heavily lampshaded), locked in, and then receive a message that a ghost will possess one of them and kill the others. This appears to happen but eventually turns out to be a prank by Jake targeting Finn. Double subverted (?) since Finn intended to prank Jake and staged the first two "murders" accordingly; Jake found out about Finn's plans well in advance and turned the tables on him.
196* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'' features this in the finale of Season One. All of Wartwood is invited to Toad Tower for a party by none other than Anne's friend, Sasha. They are led to a heavily guarded room with a large banquet inside. Meanwhile, Anne and Sasha decide to catch up with one another. Sasha explains that the real reason everyone got invited to Toad Tower was that the toads had decided to execute Hopadiah, believing him to be upsetting the political structure of the valley due to the fact he'd run for mayor against Toadstool (and likely would have won if he'd campaigned outside of Wartwood). Commander Grime believed that executing him in front of the other frogs would prevent rebellion. Their plans are thwarted when Sprig notices that the guards are acting strangely and are forbidding them from leaving the room, and realises that they're prisoners rather than guests.
197* In the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "And Then There Were Fewer", the Griffins and other recurring characters were invited to a party by James Woods to make amends with all of them for the wrongs he did them. At dinner, following the death of Quagmire's date, Stephanie, everyone thought the actual reason he asked them there was to kill them all, [[spoiler:but after James is also murdered and it's later revealed that Stephanie's death was an accident, they eventually realize that one of the partygoers was after Woods]].
198* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "[[Recap/FuturamaS4E8CrimesOfTheHot Crimes of the Hot]]" culminates in this sort of gathering, orchestrated by President Nixon, intended to wipe out all robots [[ItMakesSenseInContext to prevent global warming]]. Everyone in Planet Express knows it's a trap, but [[DeathSeeker Bender doesn't care and goes anyway]].
199* ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'':
200** Twice at Camp Wannaweep, and both times, it was Ron's archenemy Gill who wanted to kill and/or mutate them.
201** Dr. Drakken has twice invited groups of famous scientists to conferences/traps. The first time, he invited Kim's father, a former schoolmate, without connecting the surname "Possible" to his nemesis ("It's a common name! Who knew?"). The second time he intentionally omitted Dr. Possible from the invite list to avoid attracting Kim's attention (it didn't matter, Kim was visiting her uncle at the Possible Ranch right down the road).
202* ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'': The Season 2 finale, "The Wedding Squanchers", features Tammy, a school friend of Summer's, inviting Rick and his family and friends to her wedding with Bird Person, Rick's best friend. However, it turns out that the whole wedding was a ruse set up by Tammy and the Galactic Federation to gather Bird Person's band of rebels together and have them all arrested for rebelling against the dictatorship. Tammy then murders Bird Person, leading to a shootout that culminates in several of Rick's allies getting killed, wounded, and/or arrested by the Federation, but the main characters manage to escape.
203* The ''WesternAnimation/SpaceGhostCoastToCoast'' episode "Surprise" has Moltar and Zorak rounding up the Council of Doom so they can throw a surprise party for Space Ghost's birthday. And by "surprise party", we mean "ambush". After suffering through a host of painful distractions, Space Ghost comes back, sees through their transparent attempt at hiding behind a curtain, and blows them up with his power bands.
204* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'':
205** The show had an episode where Dr. Venture, Brock, Baron Ünderbheit and Pete White all attend the funeral of a friend from college, only for the friend, who wasn't really dead, to kidnap them all in revenge for their wronging him. It turns out that these slights all had to do with the man's crush on a girl at college; the four "victims" all mock this since the girl never knew he existed in the first place and the whole crush bordered on stalkerish obsession. Then it turns out the friend ''had'' died, ages ago, and the scheme was being carried out by a robot duplicate.
206** There was the episode that introduced Underbheit where he holds a meeting with his subordinates and subsequently attempts to kill them. A later episode shows he failed, two of them run a resistance against him, a third is being held captive in his bedroom.
207** Later in the same episode, Ünderbheit is party-ambushed in turn. The Monarch invites him to a meeting to settle whose minions have the right to menace Dr. Venture, set up as a cheap party complete with snacks "for company" and mistakenly-diet soda. When the Baron arrives, he immediately has to fend off a surprise laser attack, but after some posturing and minion casualties, they call a draw and continue with their summit.
208---> '''Dr. Girlfriend:''' Is it over?\
209'''The Monarch:''' Yeah, yeah. You can come out now; we're done.
210[[/folder]]
211
212[[folder:Real Life]]
213* Creator/NiccoloMachiavelli, in his classic work of political science ''Literature/ThePrince,'' describes just such a banquet hosted by Oliverotto Da Fermo. Oliverotto invited all the nobles of Fermo who might oppose him to a banquet, then invited them to meet with him privately to discuss serious political matters -- in a room where he had armed men waiting to massacre them. This included his [[EvilNephew uncle]] Giovanni Fogliani, [[{{Nephewism}} who had brought him up]].
214* UsefulNotes/VladTheImpaler supposedly organized a Nasty Party a couple times, once reacting to a begging epidemic in one of his domains by inviting all of the beggars to a huge Christmas party, locking them in, then setting the place on fire. There was also the time, early in his first reign, when he invited nearly all of Wallachia's [[AristocratsAreEvil ruling nobles]] to a fancy Easter feast. During the feast, he asked them, almost idly, "How many rulers of our nation have you known?" The nobles responded that they'd all known anything from half a dozen (for the youngest) to more than they could remember, all of them taken down by their own backstabbing and conniving. [[TooDumbToLive One of these nobles had been Vlad's own father.]] The enraged Vlad called in his troops, told them that they were ruining the nation by their treachery, and worked them and their families to death building a new castle for him. He promised that the survivors would be [[ExactWords "raised above all other men."]] And they were... [[CruelAndUnusualDeath He had them impaled.]]
215* The Banquet of Nyköping in 1317. The Swedish King Birger had invited his younger brothers, Dukes Valdemar and Erik, to Castle Nyköping to feast at Christmas, as a token of forgiveness after ''they'' pulled a (non-lethal) NastyParty on him at his court in Håtuna few years earlier. [[SchmuckBait Valdemar and Erik happily agreed]]. After everyone had gotten drunk, King Birger imprisoned his brothers, put them in the oubliette of the castle with a PreMortemOneLiner (see below), and (so tradition says) threw the key into the nearby river. The dukes died from starvation. A large medieval key ''was'' found near the castle in 1847.
216-->'''Birger:''' Do you remember the games we had at Håtuna? Because I remember them ''very well.''
217* It has happened so many times in Islamic history. As sources can be unreliable, many stories are probably made up: the importance of SacredHospitality in most Muslim societies, and especially in Arab culture, is such that an accusation of a breach of hospitality is considered most foul. Grievous breaches of hospitality were thus a pretty standard aspersion to cast on one's ([[WrittenByTheWinners defeated]]) political enemies, roughly equivalent to the Roman historians' habit of accusing leaders they disliked of unmanliness or sexual immorality (or both). That said, these accounts are generally considered at least somewhat reliable:
218** The first time was when the first Abbasid caliph, Abu al-Abbas al-Saffah, invited 80 princes of the previous Ummayyad dynasty to a banquet and had them all stabbed. His men then covered the bodies with rugs and then [[{{Squick}} the actual banquet, with other guests, commenced]]. To this day, "saffah" is the Arabic word for "SerialKiller" (or mass-murderer, depending on dialect).
219** The story known in Toledo, Spain as ''La Jornada del Foso'' ("The Day of the Ditch"). In early Muslim Spain, the former Visigothic capital at Toledo often went its own way and paid little attention to the emir sitting in Cordoba. Thus, one day around the year 800 AD, the emir sent a new governor named Amrus to Toledo who invited the most influential nobles of the city for a party to his palace and placed a pair of executioners armed with axes behind its entry gates. Thus, each time a "guest" crossed the door, the executioners cut his head off and threw the body in the titular ditch[[note]]This is the origin of the Spanish expression "noche toledana" ("Toledo night"), that refers to a night in which someone is unable to sleep.[[/note]]. From then on, Toledo remained calm and in a tight leash - until 30 years later, when Amrus died and coincidentally, the sons of the executed [[GenocideBackfire found themselves to be old enough to rebel against Cordoba]].
220** A particularly famous incident happened on 1 March 1811, when Muhammad Ali Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Egypt (although "governor" is hardly the right word, since by that time he was ''de facto'' independent of the Sultan in Istanbul), lured the leaders of the [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Mamluk]] ruling class of Egypt to a banquet in the Citadel of UsefulNotes/{{Cairo}} (his HQ). He had them go down a dead-end, trapped them, and had them all shot.
221* In 1929, UsefulNotes/AlCapone learned that three men, two of them his most trusted [[PsychoForHire hit men]], intended to betray him. He invited them to a lavish banquet, and once they'd eaten and drunk their fill, he ordered his bodyguards to tie the men to their chairs. Capone worked all three over with a [[BatterUp baseball bat]], before finally ordering his guards to shoot the would-be betrayers and dump the remains.
222* Jim "Shanghai" Kelly, one of the most notorious crimps (maritime kidnappers) in the 19th century, was said to have once thrown a "birthday party" for himself in order to attract enough victims to man a notorious sailing ship called the ''Reefer'' as well as two other ships.
223* UsefulNotes/{{Caligula}} was said to host various dinner parties, only to have his guests executed and/or sleep with said guests' wives and come back to gloat about their sexual performance.
224* The Black Dinner in Scotland in 1440, in which the sixth Earl of Douglas and his brother David Douglas were invited to dine with the king, given a rapid [[KangarooCourt show trial]], and executed for treason. Creator/GeorgeRRMartin has stated that this incident inspired the one in ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''.
225** The Glencoe Massacre was an inversion of this: Two companies of government soldiers commanded by Robert Campbell of Glenlyon were billeted on the Glencoe [=MacDonalds=]. During the night, orders arrived from the Secretary of State Lord Stair via one Major Duncanson, who was on his way with a force of 400 men, to assist them in a punative raid against their hosts as an example to other unruly clans in the area who swore alleigence to the crown with their fingers crossed behind their back . When they arrived, between 25 to 38 [=MacDonalds=] were dead. The combined force of Earl of Argyll's Regiment of Foot then ran amok along the glen, burning houses and seizing livestock. The whole incident attracted adverse comment from overseas, a royal commission was called, and if there was none before, the whole Campbell/[=Macdonald=] feud continues half - jokingly to this day.
226* One of UsefulNotes/JosefStalin's infamous tricks used in the Great Purge was inviting a lot of Red Army commanders to Moscow, supposedly for promotion. They were all either intercepted en route by NKVD agents and arrested or arrested on arrival. One of those commanders, one Primakov, managed to thwart the agents who boarded his train on a small station in the middle of the travel and hand them to local police as "White Guards in disguise". On arrival, a much larger party of "White Guards in disguise" was waiting for him.
227* ThoseWackyNazis' ''Sonderaktion Krakau''. Shortly after the German conquest of Poland, the entire academic staff of the famous Jagiellonian University in Krakow was invited to a meeting on the new regime's plans for higher education in Poland. Those plans turned out to be [[SaltTheEarth "wipe it out"]]. 184 of them were beaten up and shipped off to a concentration camp, where 17 of them died before international outrage, [[EvenEvilHasStandards even from]] UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini, drove the Germans to release them.
228* Technically a really Nasty Afterparty, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Bartholomew%27s_Day_massacre the St. Bartholomews Day Massacre]] was basically the Red Wedding taken to the extreme. UsefulNotes/IvanTheTerrible expressed [[EvenEvilHasStandards his horror in a letter]].
229* In 1502, a man named Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres became Governor of the Indies. A year later, wanting to end revolts by the native Taíno people against Spanish rule, he invited their chiefs to a festival, claiming he wanted to negotiate a peace treaty. But once he gave the signal, the chiefs were imprisoned in a storehouse and burned alive. The only exception was a woman named Anacaona, who was [[PublicExecution publicly hanged]] to [[MakeAnExampleOfThem set an example]].
230* The shogun Ashikaga Yoshinori came to a bad end at a festive dinner party arranged by Akamatsu Mitsusuke, who, [[ObfuscatingInsanity feigning madness]] likely due to fear of incurring the wrath of the notoriously tyrannical shogun, had the invitations sent out in his son's name. The party, which included three Noh dramas, ended with the decapitation of Yoshinori, the slaughter of most of his retinue, and the sudden appearance of a gloating Mitsusuke.
231* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_Bloodbath Stockholm Bloodbath]] (yes, it's actually called that) of 1520. Three days of party. Three days of massacre. The Swedish nobility had surrendered Stockholm to King Kristian "[[WrittenByTheWinners The Tyrant]]" II of Denmark in exchange for amnesty. His coronation was celebrated at the castle for three nights. On the third, the gates were shut. The guests were all accused of heresy and decapitated in the square outside - [[KickTheDog along with 50 other people]].
232* Duke Wenceslaus I of Bohemia (the subject of the Saint Stephen's Day carol "Good King Wenceslas") was invited by his younger brother Boleslav to a feast celebrating Saints Cosmas and Damian. At the party, Boleslav and three of his knights stabbed the Duke to death.
233* John Ratcliffe, the second governor of Jamestown, was invited to a Powhatan banquet along with 14 other colonists. He was hoping to get some food for his starving colony. Instead, the Powhatan massacred his companions, tortured him, and burned him at the stake.
234* One of these triggered the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_War_(376-382) Gothic War of 376-382]]. The Goths, who were living in what amounted to a giant refugee camp in Thrace after fleeing across the Danube from the Huns, were badly mistreated by the Roman officials, chief among whom was the local ''comes'' (military commander) Lupercinus. Eventually, Lupercinus invited the Gothic chieftains to a banquet at his headquarters, ostensibly to discuss approaches to improving the situation. Instead, Lupercinus had the chieftains arrested as soon as they all felt safe, selected a few to keep as hostages, and executed the rest. Upon hearing what had happened, the Gothic tribes out in the camp rose in revolt. This might not have gone anywhere, but one of the hostages, Fritigern, the influential (and known Romanophile) chieftain of the Therevingi tribe, volunteered to talk the people down, to which Lupercinus agreed... except then Fritigern did nothing of the kind, instead encouraging the people to attack the Roman garrison. The Goths overwhelmed the Danube legions and proceeded to wage war against the Romans in their own backyard for six years.
235* In 1838, the Zulu king Dingane kaSenzangakhona invited Voortrekker leader Piet Retief and his party to watch a dance, asking them to leave their weapons behind. During the performance, Dingane said "seize the wizards", whereupon Retief and his followers were overpowered, taken to a nearby hill, and summarily executed in what was known as the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Retief_Delegation_massacre Piet Retief Delegation massacre]].
236* During UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, Confederate Army officer and self-proclaimed Governor of Arizona Territory John R. Baylor ordered his cavalry to [[FinalSolution commit genocide]] against the Apache in this fashion, saying they should invite them under false pretenses, then kill the adults and sell the children into slavery. Thankfully, these orders were never actually carried out. UsefulNotes/JeffersonDavis [[EvenEvilHasStandards was outraged when he learned of the plan]], and responded by relieving Baylor as governor and revoking his commission.
237* Theoderic the Great invaded Italy and deposed its king, Odoacer, on orders of Zeno, the Eastern Roman Emperor. In 493, he invited Odoacer to a feast of reconciliation, only to [[TheKingslayer personally kill him with a sword]].
238* An ''accidental'' Nasty Party occurred during the coronation of UsefulNotes/WilliamTheConqueror in England. The common folk were allowed to gather to witness the event, but they cheered so loudly and excitedly that the guards thought a riot was breaking out and started slaughtering everyone.
239* When he sought to make peace with the Kidarites, Peroz I of the Sasanian Empire offered his sister in marriage to the Kidarite ruler Kunkhas. But he tried to trick Peroz by sending a commoner woman in his sister's place. Kunkhas found out about the deception and got revenge by inviting 300 Sasanian officials to his realm (to attend a festival, in some accounts), then having them either butchered or disfigured and sent back home in shame.
240* St. Olga of Kiev. After her husband was killed in treachery by Drevlians, a tribe in the Kievan Rus, she ascended the throne to hold it down for her 3-year-old son. The Drevlians decided to demand she marry their Prince, the murderer of her husband. She invited them to arrive by boat, which they did. Then the local Kievan people picked the boat up and hauled the Drevlians to a pit and dumped them, where they were buried alive. She then invited another party of Drevlians who were unaware of the fate of the first diplomatic party. The 2nd party was invited to bathe and then appear as guest of honor. The bathhouse was set alight after they had entered the house. Then she sent ANOTHER message, the Drevlians AGAIN still unaware of the fate that awaited them, this time asking them to prepare great quantities of mead so that she may mourn her husband in the city where he was slain. They did so, but after the party, when the Drevlians where all drunk, she caroused her followers to slay them all. They did so. That night, over 5,000 Drevlians were massacred. She then gathered up an army and went to finish the job. It went well until a siege began and lasted for a year without much success. Then she negotiated the siege ended by the Drevlians gifting her birds, 3 pigeons and 3 sparrows from each house. Her soldiers then [[WeaponizedAnimal attached pieces of sulfur to the birds and set them aflame]], after which the birds returned to their nests. The city burned and Olga's army slew many which fled, enslaving many survivors and leaving the remaining to pay tribute. She then continued fending off marriage proposals and then passed on power to her son, whose long military campaigns meant she continued to be the active power of Kiev for a long, long time.
241* A possibly real, possibly legendary occurrence in 5th century Britain, where it is recorded that at a banquet held in honour of a peace between the leaders of the Romano-Britons and the Anglo-Saxons, the Saxons murdered the Britons after they had become drunk. This is the origin of the phrase “night of the long knives”, in reference to the seax knives wielded by the Anglo-Saxons.
242* When Goguryeo general Yeon Gaesomun heard that King Yeongnyu plotted with court officials to have him killed for rivaling him in power and influence, his solution to the problem was to throw a lavish banquet under the pretense of celebrating his recent promotion to governor and have his men massacre all one hundred officials present. He then led a march on the palace, killed Yeongnyu and dismembered his corpse, and made himself military dictator, with Yeongnyu's nephew on the throne as a PuppetKing.
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