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alt title(s): Jones The Cat; Damsel In Distress
"The one being rescued doesn't get to complain! You just act the part and stand around trembling and say 'Oh, save me!'"
A character, usually female, is portrayed as helpless and in danger in order to put the cast in motion. In particular, the cast is unified, putting aside differences in pursuit of the rescue. Older Than Dirt.
This works especially well if the distressed damsel is a beloved character.
Doesn't work as well if the audience has grown annoyed by the character and doesn't mind her dying (basically all of Lana Lang's appearances as Victim Of The Week on Smallville). Easily becomes Narm if the character is someone who has been previously shown to be anything but helpless.
Don't expect her to do anything to aid her own escape either. Quite the contrary: the existence of a Damsel In Distress often precipitates a Dulcinea Effect. (And don't expect anyone to give her any slack on this, even if the poor girl would logically *not* have the skills or abilities needed to help.) Some damsels do try to talk back or plan their escape, but this is still rare - and it doesn't usually work.
Generally expected to give The Hero a Smooch Of Victory when he rescues her. Unless he doesn't.
Chained To A Rock is an ancient form. Hypnotize The Princess is a slightly more recent form. An Action Girl who becomes one of these is likely a Faux Action Girl, though not always, if they can reclaim their Action Girl credentials after being freed, they were just experiencing Badass In Distress beforehand or were whacked with a Distress Ball. A non-endangered form exists in the Living Mac Guffin, who is safe but out of the hero's reach, be it with distance or conditioning love/marriage.
An even more sexist version is the Disposable Woman.
For the Gender Flip, see James Bondage. See also Distress Ball, Standard Female Grab Area, Determined Widow, The President's Daughter.
Examples
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Anime
- In Bleach, Rukia Kuchiki gets to be the Distressed Damsel in the Soul Society arc, despite the fact that she was a bit of an Action Girl in previous episodes. In a sort-of subversion, though, she agreed to go because she knew she'd be executed for giving her powers to a human... and Rukia actually wanted to die in the first place.
- In the anime of Chrono Crusade, Rosette takes on this role towards the end in the series, causing fans of the manga to disown the anime altogether. In the manga, Azmaria tends to play this role the entire time.
- Given the number of times that Fuu (Samurai Champloo) ends up getting kidnapped, I don't think she can regret her investment in saving the 2 male leads to be her body guards.
- Subverted regularly in Sonic X, most notably with the episode Young Girls Jungle Trap where the female characters are captured multiple times - and get out of it entirely by themselves multiple times, too.
- Played straight in Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. This troper is still unsure that Princess Elise can walk under her own power, let alone avoid capture. She does seem to take a few steps during some of the cutscenes, but that might just be inertia from being carried halfway around the world at high velocity.
- Also occasionally played straight with Cream.
- Played straight with Amy Rose in Sonic CD.
- Although Tsukushi can typically take care of herself, Hana Yori Dango plays this straight whenever it's dramatically convenient.
- Played with and subverted in Code Geass R2 when Kallen is captured and becomes a hostage for 1/3 of the season with Lelouch swearing to rescue her. She is then put in a plexi-glass cage and even given a frilly, cleavage heavy dress. This is a subversion since Kallen is by far the show's number one Action Girl, Lelouch's personal bodyguard and one of the deadliest pilots in the CG universe, thus she re-affirms all three facts within moments of being rescued. Also, further subverted because instead of a Rescue Arc, Kallen's time as a Prisoner Of War is used as Character Development. She not only interacts with Nunnally and sees a different side of Lelouch through her, but also gets to punch the Hell out of Suzaku while wearing said frilly, cleavage heavy dress, which makes Suzaku realize he is Jumping Off The Slippery Slope.
- Let's see... a Mysterious Waif who's below the Competence Zone and happens to be the daughter of the main character? Yup, Vivio of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha was destined for this role the moment she was introduced. Of course, with her now actively training on her powers, and another Time Skip putting her into the Competence Zone's minimum age, she likely won't end up as Distressed Damsel again.
- Meow from Kazemakase Tsukikage Ran usually kicks serious butt, but suffers from plot-induced drops in fighting ability to give her partner Ran a chance to save her.
- Happens several times in Mahou Sensei Negima. First was Konoka during the Kyoto arc. Then a demon captured Asuna. Then it was inverted and the Nakama had to rescue Negi. Currently, Asuna and Anya are being held captive by Fate. Unfortunately, the rest of the team is unaware of this, as Asuna was replaced by a doppleganger, and Anya was MIA to begin with.
- As of chapter 250, The group is still unaware of Asuna being replaced, but they know Anya is MIA and they're rushing to find her. Seems the action will speed up now...
- Subverted in Monster: Realizing that Johan has plans to meet up with (and presumably do horrible, unspeakable things to) his estranged twin sister, Nina, Tenma rushes off to rescue her. The thing is, in the rush, the good doctor seems to have not accounted for two things - 1) Being mostly a Non Action Guy, he is woefully unprepared for things like a crazed lackey stabbing him in the face with garden shears and 2) Nina is pretty damn awesome in the art of Aikido, which she immediately demonstrates by saving him. Looks like she didn't need your help after all, Tenma. Too bad the same couldn't be said for her parents...
- Generally played straight in Ranma 1/2 with Akane Tendo. Two plotlines in the 38-volume manga (and two of the movies) involve her Bound And Gagged and in need of rescue, having been captured by martial artists far, far beyond her skill level. A good number of the other girls fall prey to this throughout the series, and the entire female cast winds up like this in the second tie in movie.
- Interestingly, Ranma (both in male and female forms) ends up like this even more often than Akane, who more than once has to help him out. And no one remembers this as well as in Akane's case.
- Actually, subverted. It happens, to both characters, a lot more then just twice, but in all cases, they invariably make their kidnappers regret it, if they don't just free themselves outright. Akane Tendo only remains kidnapped usually because there's some obstacle that prevents her just going home (with Pantyhose Taro, for example, she needs to cross a deep river to escape, but is incapable of swimming), she ends up emotionally bonding with her captor when they have a Pet The Dog moment with her (with Prince Toma, for example, she is touched by his description of how he too lost his mother at an early age), or Ranma inadverdently pisses her off and she refuses to let herself be saved out of spite/wounded pride. Or sometimes some combination of the three.
- Pikachu often gets itself caught in Team Rocket's traps. However, it often gets itself out, so this is an aversion.
- In the Adventures manga Platinum seems to be the living embodiment of the trope, as she rarely goes ANYWHERE without getting herself into trouble. It was so obvious that Diamond was able to point out and lampshade this only after 4 chapters into the story; most anime and manga characters don't realise this sort of thing ever.
- Subverted in G Gundam. Maria Louise really wants to play the Damsel part so her Knight In Shining Armor George De Sand comes to her rescue, so she gets Domon to help her plan her own kidnapping so he can fight George, who refused to duel with Domon per Honor Before Reason motifs. It backfires spectacularly, though: not only does George deduce their plan right from the start, but also delivers a What The Hell Hero speech to Maria as he and Domon fight. Maria and Rain Mikamura barely escape with their lives from the battlefield and, as punishment, Maria gets sent back to Neo France until the Neo Hong Kong arc.
- In InuYasha, Kagome Higurashi was frequently kidnapped by Naraku or the Monster of the Week. This happened less often in later anime episodes and the manga, when she evolves into a Straight Arrow. Slightly subverted, though: Kagome wasn't exactly a Neutral Female, and often talked back to her captors.
- In the later Full Metal Panic novels, Action Girl Kaname turns into an extreme Damsel In Distress.
- She may have more or less given up for a while after the events of Continuing On My Own, but it's only a temporary thing, and it's not that long before she starts to regain some of her old vigor and determination. Of course after that she ends up being more or less mind controlled by Sophia, but that's a bit of a different matter.
- Subverted in Magic Knight Rayearth, as a part of the Twist Ending of the first season. The girls thought that Princess Emeraude was the Damsel In Distress. She actually had the power to break through Zagato's prision all the time... but didn't do it because she was in love with him since they met. And because she was the real Big Bad. Who summoned the girls to KILL her, and Zagato kidnapped her to save her from them. The problem was solved in the end. Very dramatically.
- Nia generally fits this role in the third and final arc of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, while also somewhat subverted with being Brainwashed And Crazy. Once she snaps out of this with the help of Simon however, she fits this trope to a T.
Ballads
- Child Ballad King Estmere
 . The king goes wooing on the recommendation of his brother, and arrives to find the lady is being forced to marry. He rescues her.
- Child Ballad The Maid Freed from the Gallows has the heroine about to be hanged if she is not ransomed. Various relatives arrive and declare they are there to see her hanged. Finally, her true love arrives and ransoms her. (Most American versions of this ballad feature a Gender Flip version, of a man about to be hanged, but this is the older variant.)
Comic Books
- Comic book heroes seem to spend about half their time rescuing some girl they've been dating on-and-off for about seventy years from something each issue, from Olive Oyl to Lois Lane. (Unsurprisingly, people who Love someones alter ego often suffer from this trope.) Batman? Well, until a few decades ago, the one he would be constantly saving was his oft kidnapped sidekick, Robin: The Boy Hostage (aren't we all glad they toughened him up).
- Notoriously subverted in the 1973 Amazing Spider-Man story "The Night Gwen Stacy Died", in which archvillain the Green Goblin kidnaps Spidey's girlfriend, Spidey goes to rescue her...and she dies, turning from Gwen Stacy into *The* Gwen Stacy.
- Also subverted, in a different way, by Mary Jane Watson after her marriage to Peter. Whenever she's confronted by obsessive stalkers, she (almost) always manages to escape on her own, without any help from her super-powered husband. Even more subverted by the fact that, more often than not, Mary Jane is the one who bails out Spider-Man whenever one of his opponents has the upper hand in a fight.
- Even before their marriage, when Mary Jane was witness to a Spidey fight going poorly, she'd often brazenly distract or sabotage the bad guy, relying on her charm and wit to save her from the dangerous consequences. Unfortunately decades of this character was undone in the Film Of The Book, which gave us Mary Jane wailing hysterical demands to 'Save me!'
- Even Aunt flippin' May has taken out bad guys. When (fairly) recently the Chameleon had assembled a group of Spider-Bad guys to go after Peter Parker (This is just before Civil War, natch) the Chameleon himself disguised himself as Peter to go and kidnap Aunt May. Aunt May opens the door, and lets her nephew in, and gives him some tea and biscuits while she has to finish her knitting before revealing that she drugged the fucking tea cause she'd recognize her beloved nephew anywhere and Chameleon obviously was an imposter, holding up "OWNED" written across the sweater she just made in a knitted moment of awesome.
- See the infamous image of the JLA being told that they have doomed their love interests... except that Batman doesn't have a love interest. He has Robin. Ho Yay indeed.
- Batman sometimes has a Distressed Damsel love interest. Julie Madison and Vicki Vale in the Golden Age; Silver St. Cloud in the Seventies, and Jezebel Jet in the modern age. No, wait, scratch that last one...
- Role-reversal: This troper has heard that Yorick in Y The Last Man is the spoilt "damsel" who has to be saved by the tougher and more experienced women around him, Action Girl 355 in particular.
- It's true, but as a trained escape artist, Yorick usually has a fighting chance to free himself.
- ... Free himself from situations he often gets himself into by being at best reckless and at worst willfully stupid.
- Heather Hudson attempted to invert this trope in Alpha Flight, even referencing it. When she finds out her two-hour wait for her husband (Guardian) is a set-up, she tries to storm out: "Other wives and girlfriends may be content to play bait for the good guys, but I'm not going to stand around waiting for you to use me to lure Mac into your lair." But by then, Mac's been captured; they want revenge against Heather, too. (The woman with her throws her across the room.)
Fairy Tales
- Stories like Sleeping Beauty, Bluebeard, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White exemplifying the very origin of the phrase "Damsel in Distress".
- In The Goose-Girl, the princess is under the power of the servant who took her place and turned her into a goose-girl until the king figures out a way to get her tell her story without breaking her promise not to. (Gender Flip version in the Child Ballad "The Lord of the Lorn and The False Steward", Child #271)
- In The Maiden from whose Head Pearls fell on combing herself, the heroine is thrown into the sea and is rescued by a fisherman.
- In Biancabella and the Snake, Biancabella has her hands cut off and her eyes gouged out, and is driven into exile from her husband. The snake, being her friend, restores her eyes, hands, and ultimately her place.
- In The Death of Koshchei the Deathless, Marya Morevna is carried off by Koshchei the Deathless, and Prince Ivan must rescue her.
- In The Frog-Tsarevna, after Prince Ivan stupidly burns his wife's frog skin, she is the power of Baba Yaga and he must go on The Quest to rescue her.
- In The Two Brothers and The Three Princes and their Beasts, the hero saves the princess from the dragon.
- In The Blue Mountains, the hero must suffer a No Holds Barred Beatdown for three nights to free the heroine.
- In Soria Moria Castle, the three princesses are held prisoner by three trolls and the hero must kill the trolls to rescue them.
- In The Golden Apple Tree and the Nine Peahens, a dragon carries off the queen and her husband must rescue her.
- In The Young Slave, the heroine is the illegitimate niece of a lord, whose wife finds her in enchanted sleep and, in a fit of jealousy, beats her, knocking loose the comb that had kept her asleep, and turns her into a slave, abusing her so severely she thinks of killing herself. One day, her uncle hears her lamenting her woes and saves her.
- In Prunella, Prunella is a Wicked Witch's prisoner and she assigns Impossible Tasks; only with the help of the witch's son does she survive.
Film
- The Ur Example of this in film would probably be the protagonist of the 1914 silent melodrama serial The Perils of Pauline. A "talkie" version of the series was made in the '30s; the title was later used for a 1947 biopic of original Pauline actress Pearl White, and a 1967 film that was basically a camp spoof of the genre.
- Pearl White also starred in a nearly-identical series, The Exploits of Elaine, around the same time.
- A large number of Bond Girls fit this trope.
- A rare example of a role-reversal is in the movie version of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, where Luke Perry is pretty much the damsel in distress.
- Live Free or Die Hard attempts to make this one more feminist-friendly by having Lucy McClane reject this role at every turn.
- Ditto for Elizabeth Swann in the first Pirates Of The Caribbean, except the feminist-friendly parts were added by the actress herself. Said actress gets a much more fitting role in the sequels.
- Played straight and then subverted as said damsel takes a level in badass over the course of the movies. It gets lampshaded by Jack when he refers to her as "a certain damsel in distress... Or should I say distressing damsel." after her Shoot The Dog moment of leaving Jack to die.
- If Elizabeth is this in the first movie, then Will must be as well, because he ends up having to be rescued from the exact same situation. She manages to instigate his rescue despite being marooned on a deserted island, and then actively fights alongside him in the final battle.
- Aversion: In The Proposition, this role is occupied by the retarded younger brother. Obviously, there is no Rescue Romance. At the end, however, Charlie still has to rescue the police captain's wife from being raped and killed, although the captain himself - despite being Ray Winstone - is also being threatened, though not with rape.
- Zigzagged: In Ever After A Cinderella Story, Danielle, the "Cinderella" of the story, shows herself to be the most capable character in the film (perhaps rivaled by Leonardo Da Vinci in the "Fairy Godmother" role). When she's sold into slavery near the end of the movie, she manages to con and threaten her way to freedom just in time for "Prince Charming" and his sidekick to show up and sheepishly admit they were trying to rescue her.
- Willie Scott in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
- The female lead in Legend, it doesn't help that she's Innocence Virgin On Stupidity either.
- Hey, she did manage to trick Darkness into believing her Face Heel Turn long enough for her to free the unicorn. Of course, she got knocked out immediately afterwards.
- Giselle starts out like this in Enchanted but reverses roles in the end.
- Princess Leia from Star Wars manages to be this and simultaneously an Action Girl. However she is something of a subversion because he plea for help was not a plea for a rescue but rather a plea to get the plans to the Death Star to Bail Organa on Alderaan. She wasn't expecting a rescue at all.
- And she wasn't exactly what one would call grateful when she did get the rescue, either.
Princess Leia: I don't know who you are or where you've come from, but from now on you'll do as I say, okay?
- Carrie Fisher herself said: "I was not a damsel in distress. I was a distressed damsel."
- Rather funnily, [[Badass Han Solo]], of all people, plays this role in ROTJ. He is rescued from a dragon...by a princess. And he is helpless and weak when she rescues him, seeing as he's blind at the time.
- Trillian in the film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
- Lampshaded and averted in Shrek, especially in a scene where Robin Hood and his Merry Men try to "rescue" Fiona from the ogre they believe has kidnapped her, only to have her rebuff him and beat up all his men in a combination of styles from Xena Warrior Princess and The Matrix.
- Lambert in Alien evolves from twitchy nervousness to hysterical immobility over the course of the movie. But the writers subvert the trope by having the macho Parker get torn to pieces trying to save her.
- In Hudson Hawk, a kidnapped Andie MacDowell pretends to suffer side effects from curare poisoning so she can annoy the typewriter symbols out of her captors and lampshade the trope: "I'm not a very good damsel in a dress, am I?"
- Parodied in Disney's Hercules.
Hercules: Aren't you a damsel in distress?
Megara: I'm a damsel... I'm in distress... I can handle this. Have a nice day.
- Averted in the Iron Man film. Pepper Potts has to be rescued, but is enough of a threat that the villain feels compelled to shoot her instead of taking her hostage. She's also generally competent and helpful throughout the film.
- Indeed, the one scene that seems obviously headed for her being captured and turned into a distressed damsel has her instead easily evading the villain's clutches, and then immediately alerting the authorities to his evil plans.
- Rogue turns into one of these in the X-Men movies.
- Cheryl in I'm Gonna Git You Sucka when she's kidnapped by Mr. Big's Mooks.
- Double subverted in True Grit western: the main character is a 14-year old girl trying to prove her companions she doesn't need babysitting, and succeeding. However, eventually she does, in a perfectly classical way: first getting kidnapped by outlaws, than falling into a snake pit.
- Subverted in The Avengers. Emma Peel is captured by Sir August and brainwashed into a hallucinatory state. You'd expect Steed to break in and rescue her, but instead she escapes from Sir August, fights off her delusions and breaks out to freedom by herself.
- In Perfume, the Villain Protagonist sets his murderous sights on Laura Richis, a beautiful, virginal young lady. Her father becomes wary of the danger and does everything in his power to protect his daughter.
Literature
- Though reasonably competent, actor Lee Nicholas (in Tanya Huff's Smoke And Shadows series) seems to have an attraction for evil forces that want to possess his body, hold him hostage, and otherwise put him in peril—perhaps because the series protagonist has a crush on him. At one point, Lee actually says that he's "getting tired of being the damsel in distress".
- Sookie Stackhouse, though in her case it is somewhat justified. She's usually one of a few humans in the middle of a situation involving vampires, werewolves and other supernatural creatures that could crush her like a bug.
- If she actually is human. Being only familiar with the TV series, it seems to be suggesting otherwise. However, Sookie does still believe herself to be human. The trope is probably justified, but not as justified as it seems.
- In House Of Leaves, Pelafina writes in her letters that she is this character, and that her son has to save her from being locked up in the mental institution.
- Esmeralda in Notre-Dame de Paris. Her mere presence is the catalyst for pretty much all the action in the book. Victor Hugo kind of rips into this trope by having Esmeralda literally pine for her knight in shining armor, only to be hanged by him in the end. Had Esmeralda been a little more proactive about her own fate, maybe things would have worked out better for her.
- Christine in Phantom of the Opera... sorta kinda. I think she's less a Damsel in Distress than Raoul is a wannabe knight in shining armor. Admittedly, the Phantom leads her by the nose for a while and she flounders around for a bit, but she's not exactly helpless. She's the one who directs her relationship with Raoul, basically brushing him off or humoring him throughout the book so he'll stop bothering her. She's a very young woman, orphaned as a child, who's trying to navigate the confusing issue of real life versus a career. She can't just up and run off because the Phantom really does have the power to hand her an operatic career on a silver platter and she wants it. So she trades safety for insanity + fame. During the book's climax, Raoul is, as ever, completely useless. Christine has to make a very hard decision without any help from him. In the end, she actually turns out to be the savior of Raoul, the Phantom, and the Opera Populaire itself. The relationship between the Phantom, Christine, and Raoul is always tinkered with in film/stage adaptations because audiences expect certain formulas to play out, and the actual story doesn't really fit into any. The Phantom isn't quite a villain and not much of a hero either, he and Christine are not quite romantic, Raoul is not a hero, Christine isn't all THAT in love with him, she's ambitious, and she has some disturbing father issues. That sort of thing is engaging when you read it in a book, but the chemistry just doesn't work as well on stage or screen.
- In The Phantom Tollbooth, Milo's quest rapidly turns into one to rescue the princesses Rhyme and Reason from the Castle in the Air.
- In The Moomins, Snork Maiden, and being so pathetic has made her the least popular character.
- She often does it on purpose, since she fancies herself as a romantic heroine. She can be quite undistressed when she wants to.
- In John Barnes's One For The Morning Glory, Sylvie the goblin's prisoner.
- How about Elayne, Egwene and Nynaeve from the earlier books of Wheel of Time? They have a strange ability to get shielded, tied up and locked away only to be rescued by someone, though they did manage to get themselves away from the Seanchan in Book 2. Not to mention the time they actually berated Mat for saving them...
- They did get called on that later on by Birgitte however, who tore each of them a verbal new one and forced them to apologize. To be fair they'd also just about broken themselves out of there when Mat showed up.
- In James Thurber's The 13 Clocks, the Princess Saralinda is kept in her Evil Uncle's castle. In fact, she is not his niece, and he intends to force her to marry him once he is free of a curse.
- Although Terry Pratchett insists he's unable to write characters like this, Ginger in Moving Pictures (Discworld) spends her short-lived Holy Wood film career playing the role of one Distressed Damsel after another.
- In The Silmarillion: played straight with Nienor Niniel (when Glaurung wipes her memories off.) But very much subverted with Luthien: when imprisoned by her father, she frees herself. Although she is then captured a second time and needs some help to escape, she then proceeds to almost single-handedly free her lover Beren (and a number of other prisoners) from Sauron. Yes, that Sauron.
- Edgar Rice Burroughs. To be just, he has a lot of James Bondage as well, but:
- Jane in Tarzan
- Meriem in Son of Tarzan
- Dejiah Thoris in several John Carter Of Mars books
- An anonymous group of women in The Gods of Mars, thrown to animals, inspires a Gladiator Revolt.
- Thuvia in Warlord Of Mars and Thuvia Maid of Mars
- Tara in Chessmen of Mars
- Valla Dia in The Master Mind of Mars
- Virginia Maxon in The Monster Men
- Dian in At the Earth's Core
- Both Sanoma Tora and Tavia in A Fighting Man of Mars. Sanoma loses her spirit entirely, which is evidence enought that she is not, after all the Love Interest.
- Judge Dee's cases often include at least one of these young ladies; ranging from vagabond thieves, to reluctant prostitutes to innocent young ladies of gentle birth. However they are seldom quite helpless or useless.
- Wilkie Collins' Victorian novel The Woman in White (1860) featured the character Laura Glyde (nee Fairlie) who is the embodiment of this trope. She's got the emotional strength of a Kleenex.
- The interesting part is that Marian Halcombe, her half sister, is an amazingly strong character for a Victorian novel, almost an Extraordinarily Empowered Girl by the standards of the time. Of course, while Laura is the epitome of blushing Victorian beauty and fragility, Marian is described as "ugly", even having a slight mustache on her upper lip. Maybe this is a case of an Ugly Tomboy and Girly Girl.
Live Action TV
- In the Buffy TV series, everybody is the Distressed Damsel sooner or later. There's even episodes where Buffy takes this role. In the first few seasons, Willow is the main Distressed Damsel. In second two, she and Xander share the role. As Willow grows in power in seasons three and four, Xander, Giles, and even Spike end up in this position more often than the others. In seasons five and six, it's Dawn. In season seven, it's the potentials.
- Alex Cahill is kidnapped in almost literally every other episode of Walker Texas Ranger.
- In Firefly, it seems that every episode that centers on River has her in serious danger, needing some Big Damn Heroes to save the day...except for "Objects in Space," where she hits the villain with one hell of a Xanatos Gambit.
- The ironic part is that by Serenity, she's activated hidden Waif Fu powers that would have let her handily deal with every one of the bad guys gunning for her in the series.
- I suspect she didn't know she had those powers until after Ariel when her brother had enough information for his work. That seems to be about when she starts taking a level and This Tropper doesn't think it an accident.
- River in the series go so smart and powerful that Serenity's own crew starts to worry about whether she's save to keep around.
- She showed some signs of her impending badassery earlier on in the episode "War Stories" when she gunned down three of Niska's men with her eyes closed in order to save Kaylee, who this troper believes would have shared Distressed Damsel duty had the series actually continued.
- If this troper isn't mistaken, Joss Whedon has said something to the tune of, "Whenever we wanted to up the suspense, we just put the cute engineer in danger."
- And it's been similarly commented that anytime a man infiltrates the ship he does so by befriending Kaylee, flirting with her and then threatening her at gunpoint. (This happens twice, with Simon in the pilot and then Tracy in "The Message", and probably would've been a continuing trend.)
- Wait, when does Simon ever threaten her at gunpoint? (And for that matter, when does he flirt with her in the pilot?)
- He doesn't, the Fed shoots her and Simon threatens to let her bleed to death if Mal doesn't run from the nearby Alliance ship. This is one of the few times when his Big Brother Complex manages to stray into Knight Templar Big Brother territory. And he certainly does not flirt with her. He seldom does anyway and that incident would make him feel a little...awkward. Funny thing is she starts to get a crush on him then though.
- As if we could forget, Lana Lang in Smallville? The whole first season was one big Lana capture-fest. And most of the second. Usually by kryptonite mutants who ''loved'' her. And once they had her, they often tried to kill her, for no better reason than to give Clark a chance to arrive JUST IN TIME! One later-season character actually commented sardonically to his obsessed stalkermutant friend "Lana Lang? Gee, how original."
- In Power Rangers In Space, just try to count how many times the Rangers themselves get tied up, to either figure a way out in time for the big fight, or be rescued by the one Ranger who wasn't there at the time.
- Supernatural tends to apply this trope so much it gets annoying after a while. The Victim Of The Week (usually female) is either being threatened and can't help herself out or Sam is pinned to something and helpless against the MOTW or Dean is doing something stupid/going off on his own, getting nabbed and needing Sam to save his arse.
- They've subverted it twice with Sam, though. In Bloodlust, the vampires capture him but let him go after they've given him a good talking to and in The Benders, he manages to get out of his cage without Dean's help and Dean ends up being the tied up one in need of saving.
- Far Scape put pretty much every character, male and female, hero and villain, into such a situation—notably John, who is captured and tortured at the end of the first season and is rescued by Aeryn (with help), and Aeryn, who is captured and tortured at the end of the final season and is rescued by John (with help). This makes sense, as she is the Action Girl at the start of the show, and while he's not quite an action hero by the end he has gotten badass enough to return the favor.
- Subverted (a bit) in Doctor Who (notorious for women who needed rescuing from bug-eyed monsters at every cliffhanger) with Jo Grant (UNIT assistant to the Pertwee Doctor) who was a trained spy/escapologist, and thus was the one who freed the Doctor when they were captured. (Lampshaded also by Sarah Jane Smith when she rescues the Doctor from a cell in The Android Invasion and quips: "This time I'm saving you!") Jo Grant was originally conceived as an Emma Peel-type Action Girl but they cast Kathy Manning after her somewhat ditzy audition, a classic example of the difference between what the producers say they want and what they actually want.
- Barbara Wright alternately played this trope straight and subverted it. The most memorable straight example would be in the very first Who serial An Unearthly Child, where she spends most of the last two episodes screaming and crying. She seems to have gotten it out of her system by the next serial, where she's perfectly happy to go on a commando raid into the Dalek city. Her most memorable subversion is probably The Crusade, where she does get kidnapped, but rescues herself and is on her way back to rescue everyone else by the time Ian shows up to save her.
- Mary Tamm was initially leary of taking a companion role in the series for this very reason, but she was assured that her character, Romana, would be an intellectual equal to the Doctor and a competent women to boot. Supposedly, she left the role later on because she felt it had reverted to this trope (although possibly she left because she was having a baby — the internet is not very clear on the matter.)
- Parodied in the Captain Proton holoprogram in Star Trek Voyager with secretary Constance Goodheart, whose only function is to be captured by the villainous Dr Chaotica so Captain Proton can rescue her, and whose only dialogue is an ear-splitting scream. When Seven of Nine is roped in to play Constance she asks what her function is. Tom Paris (playing Proton) replies awkwardly that her job is to "tag along on all the missions".
- Topanga plays with this trope in the second season's Halloween episode of Boy Meets World:
Cory: (seeing Topanga in a long gauzy dress) Why'd you have to wear that?
Topanga: I'm a damsel. But not the distressed kind, one who's totally calm and in complete control of her own destiny.
- Gillian Anderson may consider Scully to be a good feminine role model, but there's no getting away from the fact that the character spent a worrying amount of time (especially in seasons 1 to 4) being kidnapped, tied up and drooled over by freaks and fruitcakes. Of course, Mulder had a tendency to rush headlong into dangerous situations which usually lead to Scully having to save his ass, so maybe it doesn't count.
- Spencer Reid. The fandom doesn't bet on whether he'll be kidnapped/held hostage/injured in the season. They bet whether he won't be more than once. He does have a tendency to save himself, though.
- How could Ms. Peel from the original Avengers series be forgotten? Almost all of the episodes feature her in some kind of predicament, generally clad in tight fitting (not to say clinging...) apparel and bound in a weird situation. Examples are: tied in aluminium foil to act as an electric conductor to electrocute Steed when he touches her, tied to train tracks (classical but effective), bound to a Mad Scientist patented reclining table to act as guinea pig for his super strong laser, tied, scantily clad in a harem outfit (bordering on High Octane Fetish Fuel...)...
- Possibly the only reason why Kate exists on Robin Hood.
- Jeremy Clarkson tried to take advantage of this on Top Gear when he drove his Toyota into a ditch and then called emergancy services, claiming to be a pregnant woman about to be eaten by dogs (rather than a fat, old man who can't judge terrain).
Mythology
- This is Older Than Dirt, dating back at least to the Greek myth of Perseus and Andromeda.
Radio
- The Shadow's companion Margot Lane served the function of designated hostage more often than not...especially if a Mad Scientist needed a "test subject."
- Margo Lane is also an example of Flanderization. In the early episodes with Orson Welles, she was fairly competent and saved The Shadow almost as much as he saved her.
Video Games
- Princess Peach Toadstool from the various Super Mario Bros games, who has been kidnapped too many times to count. And yet she's perfectly capable of kicking butt in such games as Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario RPG, Super Princess Peach, Super Paper Mario, and the Super Smash Bros series. Go figure.
- Thank you, Mario, but our princess is in another castle!
- Like Zelda mentioned below, Peach in the Paper Mario games doesn't just sit idly by. She utilizes Twink (and TEC in Thousand-Year Door) to send mission-vital information and items to Mario. Maybe one of these days she'll orchestrate her own escape (The Deus Ex Machina in Super Paper Mario doesn't count).
- Peach also does this in Super Mario Brothers 3, sending useful power-ups to help Mario and Luigi. Bowser doesn't kidnap her until the player enters World 8.
- Tippi also plays Distressed Damsel for all of one chapter in SPM, though her capturer only wants to post pictures of her on the Internet. (No, really.)
- Adaptations in other media tend to make Princess Toadstool into a Faux Action Girl. The problem is that the author may sincerely want to make her into a real Action Girl, but the Princess's tendency to get captured by Bowser is too much a part of the Mario tradition, and is quite hard to work around. But every once in a while, someone will manage to get it right: [1]
- Maybe she secretly digs Bowser. Lord knows he's hardly a scary villain anymore.
- There was one episode of the Super Mario Brothers Super Show that pulled it off. Mario, Luigi and Toad's attempts to rescue the Princess were repeatedly thwarted by the Hammer Brothers. When they finally defeated the Hammer Brothers and found their way into Bowser's fortress, Mario, Luigi and Toad were surrounded by Bowser and his guards. It seemed like Bowser would win until the Princess obtained a Starman, defeating Bowser and his army and saving both herself and the Mario brothers in the process.
- Super Mario RPG has the characters, particularly Peach herself, lampshading the harmless predictability of Bowser's abductions so much that one gets the impression she just doesn't consider Bowser a threat.
- At this point, Peach might find the occasional kidnapping and being "held against her will" as a welcome distraction from the business of, er... princessing a kingdom with a ruler of debatable competence (her father, the King).
- Super Mario Bros Z takes this to the logical extreme: when Peach is kidnapped by Bowser again, it's pointed out that nobody in the Mushroom Kingdom is panicking, because they're all so used to it.
- Baby Luigi becomes this in the Yoshis Island games. One of the babies helping Yoshi save him in the DS game is in fact Baby Peach!
- Mario himself is the damsel in Luigi's Mansion and Super Princess Peach.
- Peach's contemporary, Princess Zelda, though not exactly played straight, as although finding/rescuing/protecting her is usually the protagonist's ultimate or major goal in any game where she is present, she almost invariably cooks up some clever ideas whereby she can actively work against the Evil Plan of the Big Bad who captures her. The classic Distressed Damsel, by contrast, is tactically of no use whatever.
- In Wind Waker specifically, Zelda starts out as leader of a gang of pirates, while you're just some kid, which makes her more competent then the main character. She's also vital in the final boss fight.
- As of the sequel, Phantom Hourglass, she spent the first half of the game AWOL and the second half as a statue just to make sure she had a reason not to be kicking ass by Link's side.
- In Ocarina Of Time, she also acts as the mentor by secretly being Sheik.
- Let's not forget Pauline (aka "Lady") in the original Donkey Kong.
- Subverted in The Secret of Monkey Island: Guybrush Threepwood goes through all kinds of peril to save govenor Elaine Marley, who was captured by the Big Bad LeChuck. He gets to the church on Melee Island just in time to interrupt their wedding, only for Elaine to descend on a rope from the ceiling. Turns out she'd already made her escape, fooling LeChuck by putting a pair of trained monkeys in her wedding dress. At least Guybrush ends up getting the honor of finishing off LeChuck...
- Maya Fey of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney fame. First meeting? Save her in a court case. Reunited in game 2? Save her in a court case. End of game 2? Kidnapped, must save someone else in a court case in order to get her fanny back. Final case third game? Entire PLOT of the case revolves around this.
- In House Of The Dead 1, the thing that draws the heroes to the mansion in the first place is a distress call from Tom Rogan's girlfriend Sophie, who, despite apparently being a fellow AMS agent and the only survivor of her group, is mostly useless. Depending on how you fared, she may or may not survive. In the later games, you can rescue citizens or your partner from marauding zombies for extra lives.
- Plucky Girl Yuri Sakazaki from the original Art Of Fighting, although after the events of the game she took up Kyokugen Karate lessons from her father to defend herself and became as strong as, if not stronger than, her brother Ryo and her childhood friend Robert... the ones who actually objected more to her taking up martial arts, until she was kidnapped and finally got the training she wanted.
- Somewhat subverted in Super Robot Wars, especially on cute Lethal Chef Kusuha Mizuha. Her face just screams that she is a perfect target to make a Distressed Damsel, and in every installment of OG, starting from OG 1, OG 2, OG Gaiden, there is always a scenario where she is kidnapped, first by Ingram in OG 1, then by Lorenzo & Murata in OG 2 (only in the remake. The scenario was not featured in the GBA version), and finally by the Bartoll units in OG Gaiden. Not even saying 'I'm not just some damsel in distress waiting to be rescued!' in battles can rectify this...
- In Alpha series, however, it's a different story and a bit of reversion of the trope. Once Alpha 2 kicks in and the stories get more proper, it's usually her boyfriend Bullet that needs to be rescued.
- Though not entirely subverting to this trope, somewhat the Ridiculously Human Robot Lamia Loveless fell into this trope in OG Gaiden. After all her whole ass kicking and dramatic development back in OG 2, her story in OG Gaiden involves her getting kidnapped and needs to be rescued TWICE (even our resident Distressed Damsel needs to be rescued once this time). First she's kidnapped by the Bartolls, all while just being in the wrong place in the wrong time, stripped naked and be somewhat brainwashed to fight her allies. She was almost saved... but suddenly, the villains managed to snatch her back after the player has to wait for 6 months to see if she's dead or alive, and brainwash her AGAIN. So much that it takes a former bad ass enemy turned good to save her completely. Of course once she's completely saved, she returns being a formidable girl in battlefield (and that even depends whether the player wants to use her or not), though her story arc was pretty much over at that point. Makes you wonder if her role in OG Gaiden was only to be a Distressed Damsel.
- In Assassins Creed, Altair saves countless Distressed Damsels (and some Distressed Abbots and Islamic Scholars as well) from the city guards, and is rewarded by their family/students helping him escape from Mooks. Despite this happening in the middle of a city, nobody seems to react at all to the attempted abductions and rapes happening right in front of them.
- Furiae in Drakengard doubles as this for family reasons (she's your sister, and technically a princess) and because she happens to be the linchpin Cosmic Keystone that prevents catastrophe. As the Downer Ending page points out, this isn't as idealistic as the other examples.
- Bastila, a trained Jedi, is kept as a hostage during the first part of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. To be fair, she'd just crawled out of a crashed escape pod's wreckage when she was captured, and her captors were intelligent enough to fasten a neural disruptor to her head. She does manage to free herself the instant your rescue attempt manages to thin out the guards enough that she can finally get the disruptor off.
- Princess Cassima in King's Quest V and moreso in King's Quest VI is a damsel in distress. She is held captive by the wizard Mordak in V and in VI, is actually kept inside a tower by the Wizier Al Hazred for a plot to marry her.
- To be fair, she actually aids Alexander in his final battle by stabbing the Wizier in his shoulder when she sees the opportunity.
- Similarly, the entire objective of Kings Quest II is to rescue Prince Valanice from a tower prison.
- Tales of Symphonia's Colette Brunel. Even though, gameplay wise, she's a powerful and useful Glass Cannon.
- Let's not forget Shirley from Tales of Legendia, who is constantly kidnapped during the main quest.
- In Tales of the Abyss, Natalia and Fon Master Ion are held hostage, but to be fair, she could have gone peacefully to avoid any conflict.
- In Tales of Vesperia, Estelle is held hostage and used by the villain at the time of the game. To be fair, she did not use her powers to save an Entelexia because she would have driven him berserk, and the amount of guards could have prevented a feasible escape.
- Of course, in Tales of Symphonia nearly every character is captured repeatedly. Lloyd Irving is held prisoner early on. Raine and Genis Sage are taken to be executed. The entire cast of eight is tossed into prison near the end, and every character except Lloyd and Colette is trapped in a world of illusions. The only characters who help themselves are Lloyd (escaped his cell, though friends still had to save him in the end), Colette (forces out the villain possessing her before anyone arrives), and Regal (destroys prison bars).
- Kairi and her Nobody Namine from the Kingdom Hearts series, though they get a few moments outside the role in Kingdom Hearts 2.
- To be fair, though, Kairi's body was in distress for most of the first game. Her heart was not.
- Namine wasn't exactly played straight either, considering that Sora wouldn't have been in any position to save her if she hadn't taken an opportunity to tell him the truth about his memories.
- Kyrie, Nero's Love Interest from Devil May Cry 4 is one of these, in contrast with Dante's demon hunting Action Girl partners.
- The paramedics from Urban Chaos: Riot Response are usually in need of rescue. To be fair they're PARAMEDICS, not combat medics. They're civilians trying to save injured cops and firefighters while under attack from insane gang members with ELECTRIC SAWS. So they are doing rather fine.
- Also the firefighters, Officer Forrester, and your C.O. Adam Wolf are in need of rescue. The firefighters are excused because they too are unarmed and the Burners have guns. Officer Forrester when he is not being used as a human shield is rather competent at stealing your kills so he too is excused. Wolf is excused because they kidnapped him at his safe house. Both Forrester and Wolf tell you when to fire at the Burner and they mock their would-be kidnapper.
- Lampshaded in Wizards and Warriors. Each stage (except the last) ends with rescuing a distressed damsel, conveniently labelled as "the distressed damsel". (In the last stage, you appear to have rescued a princess, which I guess means that the other stages are variations of the "Princess is in another castle" trope.)
- Three princess sisters appear in the third game of the series. In order to finish the game, you must promise to marry them after freeing them. Yes, all three.
- Fire Emblem has had several of these:
- Ellis in Mystery of the Emblem
- 'In Genealogy of Holy War, Edain, Diadora, Yuria and Lynn start like this before they join you. Sadly, Diadora has MUCH more trouble keeping up than the other three, eventually ending up brainwashed and dead. Yuria fares just as badly, but she survives, eventually coming into her own when she gets the holy spellbook Narga and bravely vows to keep fighting.
- In Binding Blade, Princess Guinevere in the mental/emotional sense, Lilina before you free her and she becomes a Magic Warrior. Also, Badass Bookworm Cecilia (in her defense, she was injured) and Mysterious Waif Sophia, who also join your group.
- In Sword of Flame, Ninian and her James Bondage brother Nils, thanks to Nergal (though they later become A Spoony Bard and Spoony Dancer duo and join the team properly; Priscilla (she's even got the evil marquess trying to force her into marriage!), who also eventually becomes a Magic Warrior after promotion.
- In The Sacred Stones, Queen Ismaire of the White Dunes The worse thing? You do not get to save her, and she ultimately dies in the arm of her son, King Incognito Joshua. SNIFFFFF! .
- Braid takes this trope and inverts it. In the final level (technically the first, chronologically), the princess is in distress because of you. Nice Job Breaking It Hero.
- Suikoden V has a bit of an aversion with Princess Lymsleia. While she is held hostage for most of the game, she chooses to use her authority to attempt an escape from the Godwins and in the war in the favor of La Resistance in a supposed assault on them rather than accept the state of affairs.
- In City Of Heroes there is a junior heroine, Fusionette, who is constantly getting in over her head, captured and needing rescuing. So much so that it's become a running joke among the community that she has to be the worst Super-hero in Paragon and the only reason that Vanguard even employ her is as an example of others of how NOT to do the missions. Slightly subverted however as she does join you as an NPC ally for the rest of the mission once you've rescued her.
- Ashley Graham from Resident Evil 4.
- In Legend of Dragoon, Shana fits the bill perfectly. Even when she joins the party she is the light-elemental-healer.
- Parodied in Reset Generation where EVERY player tries to 'rescue' a princess from every other player.
- How could you forget about Luna Platz as she becomes one whenever the evil villains attack in the games. There are three occasions in the first game where this happens. When Taurus turns Bud into a monster, then when she (along with Bud and Zack Temple) are forced into doing the swan dance on a trip to AMAKEN. Finally when the kids teacher merges with an evil FM-Ian and goes berserk. Her role as the Distressed Damsel continues into the second game, as she is kidnapped by Hyde-Phantom, then almost trapped in a alternate dimesion by Solo-Rogue (along with Bud, Sonia and Zack), then kidnapped by Hyde-Phantom, again and then finally kidnapped by a giant bird monster.
- And it all comes to a head in the third game. The trip to Alohaha was supposed to be a relaxing affair, but then Jack and Tia corrupt Strong with a Noise Card, causing him to start an earthquake on the island and force him into a fight with Mega Man. Before you can say "it can't get any worse", JOKER shows up and erases Strong. Just as Jack and Tia transform to fight Geo, Luna picked the absolute worst time to show up - and Joker uses THAT opportunity to kill her! Strong, Luna, and Vogue (Luna's Wizard, the youngest of the lot) all get better, but Joker has established himself as a very serious threat - one that Luna fans absolutely despise.
- At the end of Total Overdose, Ram has to save a Distressed Damsel in a sequence involving many tropes so dead they don't even have entries. The Damsel is tied to the front of a runaway locomotive by the Villain, and Ram must run along boxcars, jumping into and out of boxcars, fighting mooks, and dodging explosives. The subversions could be that the Villain wears a White Hat with an antique emblem of the US Cavalry on it, and that instead of a horse, Ram gets a motorcycle to ultimately ride to the rescue on.
- Sue Sakamoto in Cave Story is continually kidnapped or imprisoned by various parties.
- For being a fairly badass killer robot, Curly Brace spends a lot of time either getting carried around by the protagonist or lying on a bed somewhere waiting for him to bring her the cure for her latest ailment.
- In Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, Mona Sax's first line is: "God! I turned out to be such a damsel in distress..."
- When Zero first wakes up at the beginning of his series, he has to protect the girl who revived him, Ciel, throughout the entire first level.
- Averted in the third game with the same pair (plus a couple of Red Shirts). When Zero goes ahead and leave the others to investigate Omega's crash site, Neo Arcadian troops attack Ciel's group. Zero is just about to save them, when Harpuia arrives, claiming that they weren't harmed (later confirmed).
- The indie game Spelunky, has a character known as the damsel, who can be rescued from most levels for an extra hitpoint. One extra hitpoint. She also makes for a good throwing weapon.
- Metroid series is a MAJOR subversion: not only is the main character a female, she also has a reputation as one of the greatest (if not the greatest) Bounty Hunters in the entire universe. On only a handful of occasions does Samus need any sort of asistance, and in most of those few cases she could probably could have gotten out of the jam on her own.
- Castlevania descended into this trope slowly. Early installments forwent hostages altogether (only the arcade rehash Haunted Castle added Simon's wife Serena, as if fighting Dracula weren't motivation enough), and when they began coming, there was uncommon gender balance. The series' first canonical damsel was actually a a guy in distress, Christopher's son Soleiyu in Belmont's Revenge; Richter in Symphony of the Night and Morris Baldwin in Circle of the Moon further balance out the captured maidens in Rondo of Blood (one of whom isn't such a damsel at that). After Circle, however, this trope began to do its worst, e.g. Lydie in Harmony of Dissonance, Mina and later Yoko in Aria of Sorrow, Sara in Lament of Innocence...
- Dawn of Sorrow plays with this a bit when the bad guys' plan to turn Soma into Dracula is to trick him into thinking that Mina is a Distressed Damsel again and kill "Mina" in front of him.
- Subverted in Order of Ecclesia. There are Distressed Damsels, but there are also Distressed Children and Distressed Men as well.
- Marian thorough most of the Double Dragon series. The original game features a basic Save The Princess plot, whereas in Double Dragon II: The Revenge she's actually killed in the opening intro (although she did came back to life in the revised ending of the NES version). The NES version of III even rewrote the plot of the arcade game, changing the identity of the final boss from a resurrected Cleopatra to a possessed Marian. The cartoon and comic versions attempted to give Marian a more active role as a policewoman, while the movie made her into a female gang leader. The fighting game based on the movie averts this completely by making Marian into a playable character.
- Earthbound has Paula in this role a total of three times - kidnapped by the Happy Happyists, kidnapped by zombies, kidnapped by Monotoli. The second time was Ness's fault, though.
- Dana Mercer becomes one about midway through Prototype. Given that the one kidnapping her is a freaking Leader Hunter she is excused for screeching in panic.
Web Comics
- Turned on its head in 8-Bit Theater, by the character of Princess Sara. Sara, through countless kidnapping attempts at the hands of countless villains, has apparently gained enough knowledge and experience to become a competent villain in her own right. She even tries to help Garland, her latest kidnapper, in his battle against the Light Warriors. Sadly, Garland isn't nearly as good at the whole "being a villain" thing as she is. "...but if something's worth doing, then it worth doing right".
- Gleefully mocked (if not outright subverted) in Adventurers, where (lead character) Karn's mother (a White Mage) scolds neophyte White Mage, Lumi, for (among other things) "not being taught how to be kidnapped properly".
- Possibly the ultimate aversion in Super Stupor, a supervillain tries to kidnap a superhero's wife, and she brings him to tears, then maims him with a garbage disposal. The hero visits him in hospital, and the villain says he fears for the hero's own safety.
- El Goonish Shive "Painted Black" arc. Grace becomes one when she's captured while infiltrating Damien's base.
- Girl Genius has Zola, who was a professional Damsel in Distress. She recently tried to trade up to something better, but failed, badly.
- The Cyantian Chronicles: Chatin and Cilke during Campus Safari, though they're not the type to be held long.
- Genderswapped with Sora in Ansem Retort
Western Animation
- Classic Disney Shorts, Looney Tunes, Popeye, and other vintage theatrical cartoons used this trope to death. Popeye saved Olive from Bluto/Brutus...
- Buddy saved Cookie from a Bluto-like character...
- Mighty Mouse saved Pearl Pureheart from Oil Can Harry...
- Bimbo and/or Koko saved Betty Boop from various baddies...
- Bosko saved Honey from more various baddies...
- The pre-Mighty Mouse Terrytoons mouse lead saved his girlfriend from more various baddies...
- Toby the Pup saved Tessie from more various baddies...
- Flip the Frog saved Flap, Kitty, and/or Fifi from even more various baddies...
- Julius saved Alice from Pegleg Pete.
- Oswald saved Sadie from Pegleg Pete.
- And of course, Mickey Mouse saved Minnie from Pegleg Pete (Disney only had one recurring villain... pass it on).
- Subverted in Pioneer Days and Building a Building, where Mickey tries to rescue Minnie but is captured himself — whereupon Minnie breaks free on her own and rescues Mickey.
- Subverted in the Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends special, Destination Imagination; the synopsis of the special was to save Frankie after she was kidnapped by an imaginary friend who controls a trippy world inside a toy box, but near the end it's revealed that she wasn't kidnapped at all, and that she willingly stayed with the imaginary friend to keep him company. But at the climax, when the imaginary friend has a Villainous Breakdown and becomes a monster (thanks to a verbal lashing by Mr. Herriman), the characters fight him to protect Frankie from being trapped in the imaginary world forever. However, the gang are roundly defeated by the monster, and ultimately it's Frankie who becomes the hero of the story: not only does she distract the monster so that the gang can escape the toybox — she briefly stays behind but soon escapes on her own, thus completing the subversion — but she chooses to free the lonely friend as well, having offered to bring him to Foster's where he can have all the friends in the world.
- Nell Fenwick on Dudley Do Right is a parodic composite of the woman tied to train tracks in the gothic genre.
- Penelope Pitstop is a parody of this genre, since often Penny was more capable than the guys supposed to rescue her.
- April O'Neil in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, at least in the first animated series. (To the point that they can recognize her "mumbles" when she's gagged, without seeing her.)
Shredder: And while we're at it, let's kidnap April O'Neil. Sure, we've done that twenty or thirty times already, but why mess with what works?
- This is lampshaded in The Spectacular Spider Man, when Spider-Man cheerily points out to an ungrateful Norman Osborn that he is Spidey's very first rescue of this type. It's played straight in regards to Love Interest Liz Allan, an Innocent Bystander who gets used as part of a Hostage For McGuffin scenario.
- Also with Gwen when she is kidnapped by Venom in the season 1 finale.
- Gwen Tennyson in the first season of Ben 10, although it was actually preferable to the Positive Discrimination that eventually kicked in.
- The entire episode of "Beauty Marked" in Danny Phantom was made in order to subvert this as much as possible. While Danny and Tucker are under the mindset that the kidnapped Sam needs rescuing, she managed to figure a way out just fine.
- The Distressed Damsel is pretty common in Kim Possible. Pretty much every main character (and some of the villains) have been in this situation. Kim. Ron. The Cheerleaders. Bonnie. Kim's Dad. Kim's Grandmother. The Tweebs. Ron's Dad. Shego. Drakken. Shego's little brothers. It's pretty much a requirement of this show that you get captured at least once.
- Daphne Blake from Scooby Doo was often getting kidnapped by the villain of the week in most incarnations, later incarnations such as the live action movies have her saving herself or fighting off her attackers.
- Subverted in the movie Batman & Mr. Freeze - Subzero. Yes, Barbara gets kidnapped, but she's so competent that she kicks the asses of her captors (Mr. Freeze being one of them) multiple times, and would have escaped on her own just fine if it wasn't for the fact that she was in the middle of the friggin' ocean. In fact, she is probably more useful in the movie than even Batman and Robin.
- In The Clone Wars, Padme has been captured three times in the first season alone. She's usually well on her way to escaping on her own by the time the cavalry shows up.
Music
- It can be argued that Anhura from the musical-in-album-form Razia's Shadow fits this trope. She argues against her father and seems to have the same sense of a greater destiny as Adakias, but she doesn't do anything about it except sit around singing wistfully (Adakias has his share of wistful singing, but he's much more proactive). She's first a damsel when her father refuses to let her marry Adakias, but Adakias rescues her by eloping with her. This causes her to grow ill, and a third of the second act is therefore spent trying to cure her illness. Then once they do, Pallis bursts in, and Adakias sacrifices himself to save her when Pallis attempts to murder her. Depending what you think happened directly after the end of the song and before the narrator's epilogue, Anhura either ends up with Pallis, basically staying a damsel, just a rescued one, fixes everything herself while Pallis retreats, getting out of the trope, or everything fixes itself without her help, which keeps Anhura thoroughly useless and in this trope.
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