A generally comic form of punishment in which you take someone or something that has been annoying you (or simply the designated Butt-Monkey) and put it to work serving a useful function as a paperweight. Or a hole plug. Or live bait. Or a TV/radio antenna. Or anything in a long list of possibilities that are both a: improbable in real life and b: uncomfortable and awkward, even dangerous, for the person so used. (The danger may be mitigated by the person being Made of Iron or even Made of Indestructium, which is often the case.)
The actual utility of putting a person in this position is less important than the comic factor and any accompanying karmic retribution.
A Human Shield is explicitly NOT this: that's grabbing an innocent as a hostage. Nor is it quite a Stone Wall, someone who (usually willingly) puts themselves in harm's way between an enemy and his target. A Human Ladder may count though, if it's done unwillingly. A Bulletproof Human Shield is an example, but only when they're alive. May also entail a less-heroic version of Load-Bearing Hero.
If the person is specifically used as a bludgeon or projectile, then it's Grievous Harm with a Body.
A subtrope of Cool and Unusual Punishment. Can overlap with Dominance Through Furniture. Related to Human Resources. Doorstop Baby is an unrelated trope.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In Call of the Night, Hatsuka uses one of his offspring as a chair when Nazuna comes to visit. When Nazuna questions if this is ok, said offspring happily declares that he offered himself willingly. That Hatsuka only has one couch in his apartment and needed somewhere else to sit while Nazuna used it is just a fortunate circumstance.
- Delicious in Dungeon: When Marcille is petrified by cockatrice venom, her friends use her as a pickling weight while they concoct an antidote. There's no harm done other than to her pride.
- Overlord:
- To punish Shalltear for her behavior while Brainwashed and Crazy, Ainz decrees that he'll use her as a bench (that, and the throne Demiurge made for him is made of human skulls). Unfortunately for him, Shalltear's creator equipped her with almost every fetish known to otakudom (including A-Cup Angst, humiliation and necrophilia), and as a result Ainz has to stop when he realizes Shalltear is audibly getting off on it. Worse, everyone else thinks Shalltear is getting preferential treatment by serving as Ainz' seat. Eventually Ainz decides to continue as a way to punish himself, since he believes Shalltear being brainwashed was his fault.
- Having heard of the above, Cocytus offers himself to be used as a seat by Ainz when he visits the Lizardmen under his charge. When Ainz clarifies that he was trying to punish Shalltear at the time, Cocytus retorts that he should be punished as well since one of the Lizardmen was rude to Ainz. After he relents, Cocytus asks Ainz which seat he prefers, leaving Shalltear seething in rage and Ainz fuming in embarrassment.
- In the Ranma ½ movie Big Trouble in Nekonron, China, the main cast is chasing Prince Kirin's airship across the Sea of Japan to China. They're picked up by Lychee's boat, there's an argument, and an angry Jasmine (Lychee's elephant) stomps a hole in the boat. How do they plug the hole? With Miniature Senior Citizen Happōsai, whose theft of a scroll years ago started all the trouble.
- For an episode of Slayers Zelgadis, thanks to his stone skin, gets to do double duty as a boat anchor when the team is fishing for a lake dragon and the guy leading the fishing trip forgot to bring one. Later in the same episode, Gourry gets a turn being fishing bait.
- In an episode of Sonic X "Cruise Blues" Amy gets really angry when she finds out that Sonic lied to her about his feelings,and tries to knock him off the pole of a yacht. She is later shown sitting on him.
Comic Books
- Wonder Woman (2011): Hades' throne is actually his father Cronus, chained in place and constantly tortured by the gaping unhealing hole through his torso.
- Used occassionally in older Zipi y Zape strips, when one or both of the twins would be punished to hold books in both arms for some form of school mischief. Truth in Television, as this sort of punishment was usual in Spanish schools during the time the Franco regime laws allowed it.
Films — Animation
- The pirates on Ice Age: Continental Drift use a live badger as a flag, the patterns on his back forming a perfect skull and crossbones. He can also become a white flag by turning his underbelly forward.
- Open Season: The Rabbits were treated as mooks, towels, gas-masks, jokes, and projectiles throughout the course of all three movie. In the second they talk about "bowling... with rabbits."
Literature
- In Girls Kingdom, Mei insists on being a seat for Erisu after spilling a bit of tea on the couch where Erisu was going to sit, instead of, you know, cleaning it up. Based on her mistress, Asuka's exasperation, this is something of a regular occurrence for her when she makes a mistake. Asuka wishes she would just stop, though, finding it ridiculous and kind of embarrassing.
- When time stops in Thief of Time, Myria LeJean invites Susan to take a seat on a small child. Susan refuses, and LeJean says the child won't know. Susan replies that she will.
- In the second chapter of Winnie the Pooh, Rabbit uses Pooh's legs to hang towels on. In fairness to Rabbit, Pooh had got himself stuck halfway through Rabbit's front door at the time.
Live Action TV
- Sir Talbot Buxomly in Blackadder the Third tells the Prince he's "dined hugely off a servant". He's not a cannibal, he just doesn't believe in spending money on tables when there are men standing idle.
- Rome. Julius Caesar (and after he grows up, Octavian) are shown standing on the back of a legionnaire in order to mount a horse. No-one thinks this is improper in the slightest.
Radio
- Earthsearch. Although he's Just a Machine, some of the tasks given by the protagonists to their Snarky Non-Human Sidekick come across as this.
Telson: Tidy, a job for you. You're to stay by the entrance. If that door tries to close, you're to jam it with your body and yell.
Tidy: Thanks. I'm glad to be of use!
Tabletop Games
- Paranoia: Being assigned reactor shielding duty is one of the many punishments available to traitors. If they're lucky, there will be enough lead vests to go around. Just another day in Alpha Complex.
Video Games
- Dragon Age:
- Dragon Age: Origins: For most of Shale's memory, no one knew it was a sentient intelligence trapped in a golem's body, not even its master. So it was used among other things as a doorstop, coatrack, lawn ornament, village centerpiece, and birdseed holder. No opportunity exists for the player to utilize Shale for this function.
- In Dragon Age II, escaped slave Fenris notes that in addition to being a super-powered bodyguard, his master occasionally had him pour drinks for his guests and prop up the furniture.
- In Final Fantasy VII Remake, Scarlett's Establishing Character Moment has her watching Materia being created (and enjoying it quite a bit) while using an unfortunate Shinra Mook as a human footstool.
Web Comics
- In Brat-Halla, Balder is completely immune to damage... but not so much to pain. This didn't stop his brothers from using him often as a decoy, and as a substitute for a number of items (too many to list them all) most notably as a hammer, and as a sled.
- In one strip
of Camp Weedonwantcha, Malachi loses a bet to Tanner and has to act as his personal stool for the rest of the day. Tanner then goes on to abuse the arrangement by loading up on food which he knows will make him gassy.
- Kevyn from Schlock Mercenary doesn't trust Lota's bots. But he doesn't want to be wasteful, either, so he has a tendency to strap them to the ship's hull as extra armor.
Western Animation
- In The Amazing World of Gumball "The Girlfriend", Jamie stretches out Gumball and uses him as a living bench so that she and Darwin (whom she has declared to be her boyfriend) can sit together in a romantic fashion. When Gumball tries to voice his discomfort, Jamie angrily reminds him that benches don't talk.
- The Busy World of Richard Scarry once does a parody of the "little boy who stuck his finger in the dike" story where the hole in the dike is much larger than the boy's finger, so he plugs it with an annoying American tourist who'd been hanging around all episode.
- Ed, Edd n Eddy: In "Rent-A-Ed", Ed is tied to the main loadbearer of Jonny's house and used as a human towel rack for their spa scam to keep him from causing any more damage. He breaks free anyway.
Edd: IS THAT THE SUPPORT BEAM TO THE HOUSE?!
Ed: What's a support beam?
Edd: This has been quite a day... - Hell Bent For Election: In the end, Joe uses Horace as a lever to pull the switch to stop the Republican Party train.
- The Megas XLR episode "The Fat and the Furious" ends with Kiva needing to quickly wire the robot's core to the system to get it working in time to repel the Glorft. Meanwhile, Jamie complains the whole time. The final connection she makes? "Could you hold this wire? And this one?"
- Phineas and Ferb: In "Lawn Gnome Beach Party of Terror", Doofenshmirtz reveals in his backstory that his parents used him as a lawn gnome after their actual lawn gnomes were repossessed. He was forced to stand completely still in costume all day, humiliating him.
Doofenshmirtz's father: BEWEGIN SIE NICHT!!
- The Penguins of Madagascar: Mort has been used by King Julien as a thermometer, an easel, a nose clamp and a TV antenna. The penguins are not that much better, using him to defuse traps or as a decoy. Through it all, Mort takes all this humiliation with unabashed enthusiasm.
- Shaun the Sheep: Shirley is a big sheep that tends to stand in one place, eating whatever she has in front of her, oblivious to anything that happens around. One "incident" that comes to mind is other sheep putting her in front of the barn door to trap their owner inside. Also, they used her as a trampoline at one point.
- In The Simpsons episode "Bart of War", a rival youth group send a note through the Simpsons' windows by attaching it to Ralph.
Ralph: I'm a brick!
