Bound And Gagged - Television Tropes & Idioms

When a Snooping Little Kid, Distressed Damsel, or Faux Action Girl (or the occasional unlucky guy) is captured by the villain, they're usually restrained in some fashion, and to keep them from crying out for The Hero, they're usually silenced as well. In the olden days, this was usually accompanied by some form of fantastical Death Trap to add to the suspense. Nowadays, when the victim's cell phone rings, the villain will answer with, "Sorry, X can't come to the phone right now. She's all tied up at the moment."

Sometimes this is done for humor instead. For example, a character who is considered annoying might be tied up by the group simply to get that person out of the way. Of course, if that character is really cute, the intended "humor" might be lost a bit. Other times, someone might be tied up humorously as the result of some mishap. For example, the US Dennis The Menace cartoon once had a scene where a seal is running amok, and at one point grabs toilet paper in its mouth and runs around the kids, wrapping them up in toilet paper. They even get gagged by apples that get knocked off a table and fly into their open mouths.

When this trope is played for dead serious drama, you can expect, in many cases, very dark lighting and only glimpses of the bonds.

It generally tends to be more light-hearted adventures that actually show a lot of rope. In those cases, part of the fun is often seeing the hero escape, or try to escape, the bonds, so there's a lot of emphasis on actually showing the bonds, the struggling, and the escape or rescue.

Related tropes include:

As this is a fairly common plot device, only works of fiction where this occurs with regularity or occurs in a unique way will be listed here.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

In Yu Yu Hakusho, Kuwabara is tied and gagged in the Chapter Black arc in order for Sensui to use his Jigen-tou to slice through the dimensions- first with Toguro-ani's body working through Gourmet, then with a conventional rope and gag. In the manga version, this was originally a ball gag and some leather bondage gear.
Akane from Ranma 1/2 found herself in this predicament when Cologne tied her up and hid her in a storeroom, to keep her from interfering with Shampoo's plots. Surprisingly, even when Akane is more than capable of breaking free on her own, she refused to do so because Ranma was being a great big Jerkass.
- This is a persistently common trope in the series. Another incident involved Pantyhose Taro holding her as a hostage, and keeping her gagged and bound with (you guessed it) Pantyhose.
Nana To Kaoru
Samurai Champloo: resident Damsel In Distress Fuu Kasumi seems to end up Bound And Gagged every other episode. It's a good thing at the start of the show she managed to get two capable Ronin in her debt to act as body Guards (See Body Guard Crush).
This happens a lot on Demashita Powerpuff Girls Z to the titular girls.
No gagging involved, but in Ichigo Mashimaro, Miu called Nobue to tell her that Matsuri was her prisoner and was being tied up with a long rope. She demanded 5000 yen (a little less than US$50) or she would remove Matsuri's panties. Nobue went over to find... Miu tied up. Nobue took Miu's wallet, removed a 5000 yen note, and left over Miu's protests.

Comic Books

Wonder Woman. No wonder (pun not intended, at least not consciously): Her creator was into bondage himself.
- Maybe, maybe not, but he definitely wrote it into the job description. The original Wonder Woman has all those abilities.. unless she was tied up (specifically by a man), at which point she became de-powered. So you can expect incredible amounts of bondage throughout the first couple decades of her comic.
- It's such a common occurrence that the Superdickery website has an entire gallery devoted to it.
  - To the point of, at one point, suggesting that the villains threaten to untie her.
D-List Superheroine Empowered ends up like this so often that villains, innocent bystanders, and her own teammates regard her as a laughingstock and she occasionally points out the shortcomings of gag design to the mellower mooks.
- Very heavy on the Fetish Fuel in this series.
Part of the Every Episode Ending in Asterix comics is Cacophonix being Bound And Gagged to prevent him singing at the big feast.
The superheroines Black Canary, Zatanna, and Siryn all have histories of being bound and gagged, due to the fact they all posses vocal-based superpowers.
Superman's Lois Lane. Sure, it's been toned down since The Eighties, but Pre Crisis, it happened all the time. As an example, check out the old Fleischer cartoons.
Captain Marvel is a well-known male example; Billy's always bound and gagged because he has to speak his magic word to become Captain Marvel.
- Naturally also happened to his sister, Mary Marvel, for the same reason.
- Also their occasional teammate Kid Eternity. He has to speak his magic word to summon a historical or mythological hero.
The Adventures Of Tintin - Tintin has been tied up on several occasions and, in one case, gagged, but has never been tied up and gagged at the same time.
The first volume of Spider Woman also features quite a bunch of tie up scenes of Jessica Drew, and at least there's one scene where she's also gagged.

Film

In A Clockwork Orange, Alex and his droogs improvise ball gags out of rubber super balls and cellophane tape when they break into Frank Alexander's house. Works real horrorshow, too.
Ball-gags are used in Pulp Fiction.
- Unfortunately, this is an example of bondage equipment being used with sexual overtones in a bad way.
The first half of the film The Transporter (staring Jason Statham) featured Shu Qi's character exclusively in this state.
The Exploitation Film The Candy Snatchers is all about the kidnapping of a Catholic schoolgirl. There's a lot of emphasis on what the victim is going through, and she is shown tied up and gagged onscreen a lot. She is never freed, at all, in any point during the movie. In fact, the movie ends with her having no hope of rescue, tied, gagged and blindfolded in a box buried in the ground, trying to cry for help through her gag.
- Gee, thanks for the nightmares!
- Or not...
Hilariously done in Ratatouille, with one unusual twist—it's the "good guys" doing the binding and gagging (on a Health Inspector and an interfering former Head Chef)!
Just about every single sci-fantasy movie produced in the 80's, regardless of budget, thematic intent, or supposed time period, had at least one bondage scene. Persistent Fetish Fuel for a troper too young to actually be watching those movies...
Not surprisingly, this happens to both of the female leads in Bound.
Taken to a level of hilarity in the movie Big Trouble In Little China.
Cameron Diaz has a number of tie-ups to her credit, including:
- In Head Above Water she gets tied to a chair with a ton of rope and gagged, tied up and gagged and carried over a shoulder, and later even tied up with her feet in cement. A comedy with tie-ups galore on one of the cutest women out there, Cameron Diaz.
- In A Life Less Ordinary, she is tied to a chair as part of a somewhat faked kidnapping, then later seen tied up and gagged at a table while trying to play a card game, before she is blindfolded.
- In The Mask she is tied to a post.
In the Charlies Angels movie, Drew Barrymore's character is tied to a chair by ~~her boyfriend~~ some creep and gagged with a wide strip of duct tape with red lips drawn on it.
- Mind you, she then proceeds to wipe out everyone in the room, still bound to the chair. Definitely Took A Level In Badass.
A not-so-common, non-villainous example occurs in the exorcism scene from The Exorcism of Emily Rose. The title character allows herself to be tied to her bed posts at one point to keep the demon possessing her from hurting herself or anybody else in the room. It doesn't work.
Lampshaded in Whats Up Tiger Lily? - villain Shepard Wong has the hero and his two girl assistants bound up. Several henchman walk out of the room as Wong mutters "Everyone shows up when we have girls to tie up!"

Literature

This trope is actually Older Than Dirt. Odysseus willingly allows himself to be tied to his own mast when his ship sails past the sirens in The Odyssey. The other sailors use his reactions as a gauge for when it's safe to unclog their ears.
In Janny Wurts' book The Ships of Merior, Dakar is gagged using the cloth-in-his-mouth method. However, he somehow ingests the sponge they used and escapes.
Interesting usage in the obscure children's book Samantha Stone and the Mermaid's Quest. Samantha gradually learns the ability to teleport over the course of the story. After mistakenly teleporting right in front of an enemy, she is tied to a chair. She teleports out, and the guard is surprised to see a few scattered ropes lying on the chair. Later, they get the drop on her again and don't take any chances. Samantha is knocked unconscious, and bound - and gagged. When she wakes up, she can't cast the teleportation spell.
Nancy Drew. Oh lord, Nancy Drew.
- The Hardy Boys went through a lot of this as well, at least in the blue hardcover books.
Interesting usage in the kids' book Jennifer the Jerk is Missing. 8 year old Jennifer is tied and gagged, but she's so bratty, she laughs under her gag when her would-be rescuers (a 13 year old and another 8 year old) mess up and end up trapping themselves in a closet. Later, the would-be rescuers are themselves tied up and left that way overnight. The book's mood ranges from silly to suspenseful.

Live Action TV

This will frequently happen to characters like Damsel Scrappy. Kim Bauer, daughter of Jack Bauer in Twenty Four, was captured, bound, and gagged by the bad guys no less than three times over the course of the series (including by one Faux Mole).
- And once more in the video game, to boot.
An example of fantastical fare from Germany, Tom Turbo, a series about a talking bicycle and the random kids who help it solve mysteries, has someone tied up in more than half the episodes. That someone could be anyone from an adult who needs rescuing to one of the main child characters. Or both at the same time.
She Spies uses ropes and gags for its frequently-captured main characters. The show's mood is so light-hearted as to be downright corny.
In the Supernatural episode "Hunted", you would be forgiven for thinking that Dean like this was the main attraction, considering as most of the pictures released/trailers shown have him tied up. Guess they know who their audience is.
- And when Castiel had duct-tape over his mouth in "Changing Channels", livejournal icons of the scene popped up almost instantly.
The Lost season 2 finale saw Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley bound and gagged by the Others, though the gags were largely unnecessary.
Though Firefly didn't feature a whole lot of gagging, it did feature a lot of binding, particularly toward the show's resident Damsels In Distress, River and Kaylee. As a point of irony, by the time of the Big Damn Movie, River's newfound lethality allowed her to slip out of most of the binding she would have faced earlier in the series.
Doctor Who - The Doctor, in 'The End of Time Part 2'.
- Hey, this has actually occurred A LOT in the Classic Series too (most notably, Susan in "Keys of Marnius, The Third Doctor—Three Times Overall!, etc). Boy, I could go all day with examples.
The Avengers - Emma Peel. Routinely. The only times she ever seems remotely put out by this is when it looks like a related Death Trap might go off while she's still, ah, indisposed.

Newspaper Comics

Aversion: "Bound and Gagged" does not feature as much of this as you would expect, given its title.

Video Games

A rather unique example happens in the game Portal, where GlaDOS might have been modeled after a bound and gagged woman hanging upside down (as demonstrated in this fan art), making her even creepier.
- ...making it impossible for her to eat that cake, no matter how delicious and moist it might be...ummmmm.
  - Only if she's gagged. You can swallow upside-down.
- It may be worth noting, however, that the article in the above link is by someone who's simply reading WAY too deep into the game.
Unusual for the Myst series, with its distinct lack of violence, in Myst IV, a preteen girl, Yeesha, is kidnapped and later seen, first in flashbacks and later in person, tied and strapped to a chair, with rope reinforcing the straps. In a flashback, she struggles mightily and appears to be crying. Furthermore, she's played by a real child actress.
- In a less severe example, Saavedro in the third game explains that Sirrus and Achenar tied him to a post and tortured him when he followed them to J'nanin.
Video game example: Grabbed By The Ghoulies has a ton of tied up people everywhere, waiting to be rescued. Tied in almost any method you can think of. Example 1◊ Example 2◊ The game itself, however, was a massive flop.
Happens at least once per game in the Monkey Island series...except for the first game. This is ironic because the first game actually centered around a kidnapping and subsequent rescue attempt.

Music

Creature Feature has an aptly named song, "Bound and Gagged", that details the kidnapping of The Presidents Daughter.
Green Day's song about BDSM, titled "Blood, Sex, And Booze" opens with the line: waiting in a room/all dressed up and bound and gagged/to a chair...

Webcomics

In one arc of Casey And Andy, Andy and his girlfriend are captured and tied up by the Mime Assassin. Casey's girlfriend is Satan, but she's Too Kinky To Torture, and is enjoying being tied up too much to bother to rescue Andy.

Web Original

Done, interestingly, with a lot of rope and a large cloth gag for visual effect, on a young girl about 7 or 8, in a movie made by a summer camp, The Mystery of the Missing Jewels. It's obvious she isn't really tied or gagged especially tightly, and it's just for show, but that sure is an almost cartoonish amount of rope. Occurs at 14:47 in.

Western Animation

Penny, the young niece of the title character of Inspector Gadget, would frequently be captured by the M.A.D Agent of the Week and be bound and gagged, often requiring her to either free herself, or be rescued by Brain.
All the time on The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop. Every single episode. More than once.
April O'Neil in the 1987s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who always ended up being bound and gagged by the bad guys several times, especially during the earlier seasons, to the point that the turtles can even recognize her mumbles.
Totally Spies, where it happens in almost every episode. Given the cheesy, simplistic plots, it's one of the reasons many people watch the show. Or So I Heard...
Kim Possible would often find herself tied up by the villain. She almost always used this time to get the villain to reveal their plot, then escape and kick their ass.