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Involuntary Battle to the Death

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Melllvar: To prove who is more worthy of my fanatical devotion, I shall pit you against each other in armed combat... to the death!
Bender: Where did you get an idiotic idea like that?
Melllvar: Episodes 19, 46, 56, and 77. note 
Fry: Great list. Except, you forgot episode 66! Ha ha ha ha ha!
Futurama, "Where No Fan Has Gone Before"

Two parties are placed in a situation where one of them has to kill the other, usually in a contest of some kind. If they refuse or come to a stalemate, both die. Almost always initiated by a third party, usually a sadistic bastard. The catch is that neither side wants to kill the other, sometimes creating a "take me instead" type situation. Most of the time the contest is stopped when a fourth party or the participants Take a Third Option.

Note that for a situation to be an example of this trope, the participants have to be people who would not kill each other in a normal situation. So Combat by Champion would not count unless the champions were actually best friends and were unable to back down.

Closely related to the Sadistic Choice and often used in conjunction with Villain: Exit, Stage Left. Sometimes occurs in There Can Be Only One plots. Compare Duel to the Death.

Subtropes are:

Contrast Shoot Your Mate.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • The fight between the Space Angels and Guntroll during the Z.O.T. Tournament in Battle Angel Alita: Last Order. Both groups had absolutely no reason to fight each other if not for the tournament and were indeed pretty friendly towards each other, but both had to win for various reasons. Well, at least from Alita's point of view, and she was suffering the existential crisis at the time. Sechs was an Idiot Hero whose only meaning in life was fighting, and twins were just too airheaded to care. So they've fought and much awesomeness ensued.
  • At one point in Bokurano, it is revealed that The giant robot enemies are actually from an alternate Earth, with a group piloting, like the main cast. Each of the sides are fighting to keep their own universe safe.
  • Deadman Wonderland: The entire series is this. The inmates are given the choice of fighting to the death in the Gladiator Games that form the foundation of the cruel government's economy or dying when the time on their Slave Collars runs out. Although some of the inmates, like Takami, are Axe-Crazy sadists who are more than willing to kill if given the choice
  • During the Battle City arc of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Marik mind-controls Joey and forces him and Yugi into a duel. Both are attached to chains attached to an anchor; winner gets the key to his shackles, loser takes a plunge into the ocean. Oh, and Tea's tied to a chair with a large crate over her head, so no one can interfere. It would have worked except for the fact that it was escapable.
  • Lupin III: The gang has been forced or tricked into this trope several times:
  • In the climax of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, Quattro forces Nanoha into a fight to the death with her brainwashed daughter Vivio. This was partially to keep Nanoha stalled long enough for the final phase of the Evil Plan to be put in motion, but mostly because she likes to watch people suffer. Nanoha manages to win the fight non-lethally, but not before exacting Mama Bear fueled vengeance on Quattro.
    Quattro: Now kill each other like a good mother and daughter.

    Comic Books 
  • Batman: Zero Year: When Bruce goes to a nomadic Norwegian tribe to learn how to fight, he isn't told the fight is to the death until after the battle commences. When he spares his opponent (after a 24-hour fight), the tribe's queen sends her entire tribe after him. Bruce incapacitates everyone who comes at him until the others are too scared of him to continue.
  • In Wonder Woman (1942) #177, Wonder Woman and Supergirl are captured by Galactic Conqueror Klamos and forced to battle to the death in a tournament to decide who will become Klamos' queen under threat of Earth being destroyed. They Fake a Fight and take the opportunity to expose Klamos as a robot controlled by his "assistant" Grok.

    Fan Works 
  • Checkmate (Anla'Shok): The Hunger Games is this in general, with the one victor premise, but Mags' memories of the Second and Third games' emphasize the "involuntary" part of the trope. Both years, every single tribute refused to fight or kill anyone until they either got parachuted messages threatening the tribute’s families or the gamemakers threatened to have carnivorous mutations eat them alive.
  • Used in the TRON: Legacy fanfic "A Survivor's Tale." Yori, who's been working with the Resistance, is captured and sent to the Games. Unfortunately, she has to face off against you know who...Turns into a Moment of Awesome, though, when she's able to battle him to a draw.

    Films 
  • Balls of Fury: The hero and his love interest are forced to fight each other in ping-pong, loser dies. Each tries to make the other win, but the contest is stopped halfway for being boring.
  • The Dark Knight:
    • When Joker kills Gambol, he turns to the crime boss's men and tells them he's hiring, but there's only one spot. He then drops a broken pool cue between them...
    • In a more elaborate variation, the Joker rigs two ferryboats with explosives and gives each boat the detonator to the other. To make it more interesting, one is filled with ordinary people, while the other is filled with convicts. If either boat blows up before midnight, the other is spared. If not, Joker blows them both up. After much-protracted discussion and agonizing, each decides not to blow the other up, and Batman stops the Joker from carrying out his threat. Plenty of fans have guessed that the Joker was lying about which explosives the detonators would trigger.
  • In Spartacus Spartacus and one of his soldiers are made to fight to the death. However, the one who wins will be crucified, so while they are friends, they're genuinely trying to kill each other because it's cleaner than crucifixion. One wonders why they gave him the satisfaction instead of just running each other through, or falling on their swords.
  • No Escape (1994): Marek sets Robbins against Casey.
  • History of the World Part I by Mel Brooks. Brooks's character (Comicus, a comedian) and a slave he rescued earlier, Josephus, end up in one of these. Comicus wins, but can't bring himself to kill Josephus; Comicus gives him a weapon back and they fight their way out.
  • The Quick and the Dead: Almost played straight, but they wind up taking a third option. Forced into a shoot-off. Crowe's character, Cort, is forced into practically every shoot-off, but especially the one with Ellen (The Lady). Neither wants to shoot the other. Both want to shoot Herod, though.
    Herod: If neither one of you fire by the time I count down from ten, my men will gun you down. Ten... nine...
    Cort: Draw your gun. He'll do it.
    Herod: Eight. Seven.
    Cort: Draw!
    Herod: Six.
    Cort: Kill me, Ellen.
    Herod: Five.
    Cort: Kill me! Kill me! Kill me. Or I'm gonna kill you.
    Herod: One! *Cort finally shoots and down goes the Lady*
    Doctor: *runs over to Ellen* She's dead. She's dead! Leave her alone. You vultures. Don't touch her!
    Herod: Nice shooting, Reverend. You put a fox in the henhouse and he'll have chicken for dinner.

    Fortunately, he missed on purpose and she just pretended to die. The doctor and the blind kid were in on it. Then Cort basically blows up the town with dynamite set up practically everywhere and the Lady gets to have her awesome moment.
  • The Barbarians features two imprisoned twin brothers, who are raised to hate an opponent wearing a special helmet. They're pitted against each other in gladiatorial combat wearing said helmets. When the masks come off, they recognize each other and refuse to fight.
  • The Count of Monte Cristo has this, but subverts it when the battle ends. The protagonist, having defeated his foe, convinces the captain to allow them both to live, thus earning the loyalty of the man he was supposed to have killed.
  • The Training from Hell that the kidnapped girls undergo in Naked Weapon involves several of these in order to thin out their numbers and, eventually, end up with one girl. The first time involves the madam telling them to come out of their dorm/barracks in 5 minutes dragging another girl's body, cutting the numbers in half. The final challenge is several duels to the death. However, when the two protagonists are forced into a three-way fight with an ambitious, evil girl, they show such skill, that the madam decides to let all three live.
  • In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Batman and Superman are fighting to the death. Batman is fighting because he believes Superman is an alien menace and needs to be killed for the safety of the world. Superman is fighting because Lex Luthor kidnapped Martha Kent (Superman's mother) and tells Superman that the only way to save her is to bring Luthor Batman's head. Batman straps on the Superman equivalent of a Hulk-buster and grabs his kryptonite weapons and the battle royale ensues.
  • Django Unchained showed what was called a "mandingo fight", where two slaves in the Antebellum South (US) were forced to fight a barehanded brawl to the death as a wager between their owners. Despite Quentin Tarantino's claims of accuracy, this is not something that happened in real life (slave boxers and wrestlers were common enough, but not death matches).
  • A variant in TRON. Flynn is pitted against Crom in one of these. The Novelization expands on the match. Flynn thinks it's a harmless sparring or tutorial match and doesn't take it seriously. Crom was led to believe that Flynn is a traitor and sent to kill him as a test of loyalty to Master Control. It's only when Flynn refuses the order to Finish Him! that they realize the setup, though it's too late for Crom.

    Literature 
  • In A Song of Ice and Fire, trial by combat is a common way to end matters that can't be resolved in any other way, but Joffrey Baratheon enjoys forcing them on people for minor disputes.
  • In Dark Lord of Derkholm, Blade and Kit (who are brothers despite being, respectively, a human and a griffin) are both forced to compete in Gladiator Games and unexpectedly encounter each other as opponents. They stage a fight until they can figure out how to escape.
  • This sort of thing happens rather frequently in the Barsoom novels. In A Princess of Mars, leads to a very cool moment where Carter and Kantos Kan escape by fighting for hours (until sunset), then faking the death of one of them whilst the other one is set free for winning.
  • The entire plot of The Hunger Games may be seen as this, with 24 teenagers chosen at random for a survival and fighting competition to the death. This applies notably to Katniss and Peeta being the final contestants. However, the author finds a way to keep from killing all the people we know.
  • Similarly to the above example, the central premise of Battle Royale is a class of ninth graders thrown into an Involuntary Battle To The Death on a deserted island.
  • In the Modesty Blaise novel I, Lucifer, Modesty and Willie get captured by the villains and forced to fight each other in a quick draw duel to the death, Modesty's handgun versus Willie's throwing knife. They come up with a way of staging Willie's death so he can get away and send word for help.
  • Toyed with in the ten tennis shoes adventure book, where two characters are recruited to fight in a gladiatorial match, by opposing teams. Neither knows the other is their opponent and after the two leaders tell the characters that the other killed their girlfriend/friends, they are willing to fight- but when they figure out who the other is, they stop.
  • Igor Bereg's The Sky under the Ceiling involves a mild-mannered man being given a gift by a strange man after confessing how much his life sucks. The gift is a model aircraft hangar, which turns out to have a built-in Shrink Ray that turns the man tiny. He finds a World War II-era fighter in the hangar in full working condition along with a number of manuals. After learning to fly, he uses the plane to destroy the hornet's nest in his office. However, a "friend" of his has ties to The Mafiya and finds out about the invention. The man is kidnapped along with a Georgian restaurant owner (the protagonist's new friend) who used to serve in the Georgian Air Force. The "friend" set up combat between the two with cameras attached to the planes. Both pretend to engage in Old-School Dogfighting until the "friend" orders his bodyguards to start shooting (the bullets look like big missiles to the tiny pilots. The two pilots survive and return to normal size, while the police arrives to arrest all the spectators.
  • In James Swallow's Blood Angels novel Black Tide, Rafen finds himself pitted against Tarikus when they are prisoners. Tarikus tells Rafen to shoot him. Rafen Takes a Third Option.
  • In the Paradox Trilogy, the xith'cal tribe leader Reaper tries to force Captain Caldswell and John Brenton to fight to the death by using drugs to drive Brenton into a berserk rage. Ironically, Caldswell and Brenton were already mortal enemies, and under any other circumstances would probably have fought to the death entirely voluntarily. As it is, Caldswell is more concerned with escaping from Reaper than finishing off Brenton, and both end up surviving.
  • For some reason, villains in the Star Wars Expanded Universe have a crippling desire to do this to the twins Jacen and Jaina Solo. First the villains of the Shadow Academy arc arrange to have it happen via holoshroud (both of them look like Darth Vader); then the Yuuzhan Vong grow obsessed with the idea of having the two of them sacrifice each other to their gods, which ends up in a lot of wasted effort and no sacrificing. Then, in the Legacy series, Jacen turns to the Dark Side and Jaina is forced to finally, actually battle him to the death (although by choice).
    • The Yuuzhan Vong at least have some level of cultural excuse for their fixation; their religion views twins as exceptionally sacred (twins are very rare among the Vong, and when they do come along they're considered an omen and are inevitably required to fight to the death), and they have a massive hatred for the Jedi and Force-users in general. Thus, the ritual sacrifice-by-combat of twin Jedi would have been an omen of massive significance, possibly (in their eyes) enough to guarantee final victory of what was left of the galaxy's indigenous governments.
  • Wings of Fire: Queen Scarlet forces her prisoners to fight to the death in an arena for the amusement of her and other dragons. Sometimes they even throw in humans for the fun of it. Clay is unable to kill any of his opponents and only got out alive because Glory killed the opponent for him, but Tsunami is forced into killing hers. Scarlet raised Peril as a Tyke Bomb who always wins her fights due to her special power.
  • In The Reformed Vampire Support Group, the vampires discover that werewolves exist and are subject to this. People capture kids who have recently developed lycanthropy, put them in a ring before the full moon, then watch as the two lose control and rip each other apart. Almost every werewolf we meet in this world is a traumatized survivor of these fights.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Star Trek: The Original Series episodes. TOS was absolutely in love with this one!
    • "Arena". Captain Kirk is forced to fight the captain of a Gorn ship to the death. Of course, Kirk would have been pleased to blow their ship to pieces but has a change of heart when it's hand-to-hand combat.
    • "The Gamesters of Triskelion". Captain Kirk, Lieutenant Uhura, and Ensign Chekov are kidnapped and forced to fight alien gladiators. The last combat, between Captain Kirk and a Green-Skinned Space Babe, is to the death.
    • "Amok Time". Captain Kirk agrees to fight Spock as part of a Vulcan ritual but finds out too late that it's a death duel. Spock, who does know the details, tries to stop him, but as he is in the grip of Blood Fever-induced insanity, he can't get the idea across.
    • "Day of the Dove". The entire Enterprise crew is forced to fight a group of Klingons so an Emotion Eater alien can get its fill of negative emotions.
    • "Bread and Circuses". A civilization based on Ancient Rome forces Kirk, Spock, and McCoy to participate in televised gladiatorial games to the death.
    • "The Omega Glory". At the end, Captain Kirk is forced by the Yangs to fight Captain Tracy to the death in a Trial by Combat to find out who's telling the truth.
    • "The Savage Curtain". Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock are lured down to a planet and forced to fight evil beings from Federation history for the amusement of the planet's inhabitants.
  • The Outer Limits (1963) episode "Fun and Games".
  • An unusual use came in the first season of Black Adder when Edmund challenges a notorious warrior to a duel for calling him a bastard (parentally speaking). He rather loses momentum when the man enthusiastically replies ''TO THE DEATH!", but can't back out by that point.
  • The MO of the murderer in the Criminal Minds episode "The Fight".
  • The Season 3 finale of Cobra Kai has a flashback to when a young John Kreese was a POW in Vietnam. His platoon was captured when he hesitated to set off an explosive charge that would have killed one of their own (he was executed when captured anyway). During their captivity, their captain and Kreese (offering to replace fellow soldier Terry Silver) are forced to fight on a small bridge over a snake pit. During the fight, an air strike drives off their captors. Kreese, however, angry at the captain for not telling him his girlfriend died in a car crash, sends him to his death.
  • Power Rangers Lost Galaxy: Deviot outfits the Blue and Green Rangers with mind-controlling shackles, forcing them to fight each other so he can harness the energy they expend. They probably would have died from exhaustion had the other Rangers not staged a rescue.
  • Happens in the Merlin (2008) episode "The Coming of Arthur: Part One" between Arthur and Gwaine. It was mostly a coincidence, as the instigator of the fight had no idea that the two men had ever even seen one another before.
  • In The Sight the villain forces Huttser and Palla into one of these by threatening to kill the survivor painfully, causing them to each struggle to give the other a merciful death.
  • In the MacGyver (1985) episode "Humanity", Mac is captured in Romania by a member of the K-Force, a Praetorian Guard still loyal to Romania's dead tyrant CeauÅŸescu. After seeing Mac fishing, he becomes upset and later reveals that the K-Force's Training from Hell (which begins in early childhood) forbids any sort of friendship. When he and another kid he had befriended went fishing with some rods stolen from the base, they were caught and forced to have a knife fight to the death. Naturally, he won but he still feels guilty to this day.
  • In Supergirl (2015), J'onn, the Martian Manhunter, is forced into a cage fight to the death with Meghan, Miss Martian. If they refuse to fight, there is a third, humongous, deadly gladiator there to kill them. They initially fight, but J'onn convinces Meghan, that as the last two members of their species, they definitely should not be fighting to the death. Shortly thereafter, Kara, Supergirl, arrives to take out the gladiators and all the guards.
  • In the Supernatural episode "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part One" (S02, Ep21), Sam is brought to a ghost town where he and the other Special Children are manipulated by the Yellow-Eyed Demon to fight each other until only one remains.
  • In Flash Gordon, after Ming catches both Flash and Barin in his daughter Aura's room, he gleefully demands that they fight to the death for her hand in marriage (not really intending to honor the deal, since he'd much rather they kill one another). They're given flail-like weapons, with the spiked ball being coated in poison. Clearly, everyone expects Barin, an experienced warrior, to easily best Flash, whose athletic achievements are limited to marathons. At the last moment, though, Barin hurls his flail at Ming. Struck with the poisoned weapon, Ming falls. Later on, expecting to be executed, both men are visited by Aura, who tells them to leave before her father awakens. Apparently, fearing for their lives, she replaced the poison with a toxin that temporarily puts the person to sleep. Afterwards, Ming berates his daughter for not killing him when she had the chance, proving to him that she's not yet ready to rule.
  • While it's more a Deadly Game than a straight-up Duel to the Death, the fourth round in Squid Game has the contestants asked to form groups of two. Turns out that unlike the previous round, where you were pitted against other teams in tug-of-war, in this round, you have to play marbles against your teammate. Did you pick your friend (or, in the case of one REALLY unfortunate team, your spouse) as a teammate? Tough luck, now you have to beat them, with the loser getting shot in the head by the guard's revolver.
  • One particular scene in The Shield, Vic Mackey locks 2 rival gang leaders in a shipping container overnight, with the intention of either forcing them to work out their differences or kill each other. It's very clear which option they chose when only one of them walks out when Vic opens the door the next morning...

    Tabletop Games 
  • In the module IM1 The Immortal Storm for the original Dungeons & Dragons Immortal Rules, the Player Characters are made to do this by their own patrons! Well, sort of. It's like this: Being Immortals, their patrons are the Hierarchs, bigwigs among immortals, and each player represents one of the four playable Spheres. (An NPC assumes the role of the Entropy Sphere.) Throughout most of the module, the players have gathered parts of a Dismantled MacGuffin, which the Hierarchs assemble. Then, one of the players has to throw it into the eye of the eponymous storm, causing it to dissipate and preventing the end of existence. Whoever does so will gain a lot of power and respect for his own Sphere, and as one might assume, each Hierarchs wants that prestige going to his own Sphere. The players who are defeated in this battle can't truly die (they're immortal, after all) so this is sort of a dog-and-pony show to get a bunch of Jerkass Gods to stop arguing. However, the losers do get restitution in the form of one new Immortal Power. Possibly serves as a warning to the players, as they might eventually be candidates for their patrons' positions.

    Video Games 
  • One of Sub-Zero's intros with Sheeva in Mortal Kombat 11 has him comment this:
    Sub-Zero: You honor me with your challenge.
    Sheeva: Your clan will honor you in death.
    Sub-Zero: I did not agree to a deathmatch!
  • Midway through Neverwinter Nights 2, The Laws of Neverwinter force you to face and kill Lorne in single combat. You may wish to spare him as he is from your hometown and a brother of your childhood friend, but his boss wiil kill him anyway. Death by Irony for Lorne, who committed the murders you were on trial for.
  • In the climax of Army of Two: The 40th Day, Big Bad Jonah threatens to destroy the city with a nuke unless one of the heroes shoots the other to prove their willingness to sacrifice for the greater good. There is no third option. If you're playing Co-Op, the first player to reach the trigger gets to make the decision on whether to shoot Jonah (and thus trigger the countdown on the nuke, dooming the city but giving you two time to escape together) or to shoot their buddy and save the city.
  • Splinter Cell: Conviction has a variation of this when Archer is called to terminate Kestrel. Kestrel intercepts this message on Archer's comm, left conveniently next to where he was resting. The two have a serious Spy Versus Spy duel until one mortally wounds the other. The defeated dies while noting that the other "did what he had to do" with their last breath, only for the victor to be shot in the back by Kobin.
  • Silent Scope 2: The Big Bad forces the two protagonists to fight each other in a sniping duel, with the winner taking the Damsel in Distress. Subverted on two accounts. The villain opens fire on whoever wins. Also the protagonists fake it rather convincingly, using paint bullets.
  • Jak 3: Early in the game, Jak and Daxter are put through a series of gladiatorial trials to earn citizenship in Spargus City. They are quite surprised to come up against their old friend Sig at the last minute, in an arena whose only rule is "kill or be killed." Neither Jak nor Sig are willing to kill each other, which pisses off King Damas enough that he sends all three of them on a suicide mission as penance.
  • A conversation with SIGINT in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater implies that The Boss killed The Sorrow, her lover in a similar situation, but it isn't until Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker that EVA tells Big Boss the truth, that the American and Soviet Philosophers played The Boss and The Sorrow against each other without the other's knowledge and finally put them on a mission to kill the other with the threat that their child would be killed if both of them lived.
  • The main premise of Chaos Rings and Chaos Rings Omega is an involuntary tournament to the death: five couples are chosen and must combat each other until only one is left.
  • Assassin's Creed III has Connor attempting to stop his people (the Native Americans) from entering the war between the Americans and the Colonists. He succeeds but is forced to kill his childhood friend.
  • In Sweet Fuse: At Your Side, this pops up on certain routes. It's mostly dealt with, except for Urabe's bad end, where it's implied that he died and the shock (no pun intended) of his death made it impossible for the rest of the team to finish the challenge.
  • StarCraft II has at least one of these in Legacy of the Void, when Amon possesses Artanis and forces him to fight Zeratul. Zeratul is able to sever Artanis' nerve cords and break the spell but perishes shortly afterward. This prompts Artanis to say, "Zeratul... Forgive me."
  • In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind's Bloodmoon'' expansion, the Daedric Prince of the Hunt Hircine kidnaps four of Solstheim's greatest warriors (the Nerevarine, the local Imperial Legion Captain, the chieftain of the Skaal, and the Frost Giant Karstaag) to take place in his once-per-era hunt on Mundus. He has his werewolf minions kidnap the "prey", forces them to fight one another (as well as even more werewolves) within the maze-like glacier battlegrounds, and then the "winner" has to defeat one of Hircine's aspects. You can choose to spare the Imperial Captain, but the others must be killed in order to beat the quest.
  • Saejima's final boss in Yakuza 5 is one of these. The Big Bad has a man with a sniper rifle positioned to take out Haruka, and the Big Bad will give the order to do so if Saejima and Goro Majima don't have an honest fight to the death. They both proceed to beat each other bloody, but ultimately can't go through with the "killing" part. Fortunately, the assassin has a crisis of conscience and can't go through with his end, either.

    Webcomics 
  • In DMFA, dragon lord Hizell sends a message to his estranged son Piroduck: Please Shoot the Messenger or be killed by her. Mab rescues Pyroduck by disintegrating the hit-messenger.
  • Domain Tnemrot features this. Legally, slaves registered as battlers have to fight once a week or they are recalled since high mortality rates mean they're in too much demand to be kept from the ring.
  • In The Order of the Stick one of Belkar's favorite ways of kicking the dog is wanting to do this to others (other than sell them as slaves). For example, when he accidentally got elected leader of the resistance in Azure City.
    • Later, in the Western Continent arc, Belkar and Roy find themselves at the other end of this, becoming gladiators. Subverted though, as Belkar fights someone much weaker than he is, and Roy gets to fight one of his real enemies, Thog.
    • The trope is heavily lampshaded by Elan during the same games, in which the bounty hunters Gannji and Enor, who are close friends, are forced to fight to the death. Interestingly, despite his previous statements, Belkar actually has a Pet the Dog moment in which he empathizes with them and helps save them from death (with the bonus of killing several guards in the process).
  • This is how Morph E starts, but the one running the show makes it clear from the start that merely winning your match doesn't guarantee survival.

    Web Original 
  • The Evil Overlord List, not surprisingly, cautions against this.
    129. Despite the delicious irony, I will not force two heroes to fight each other in the arena.
  • Discussed by Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier in their weekly podcast SModcast, in the guise of being forced to fight each other, in a post-apocalyptic world by vampire kings: Smith is so sure that he'd die that he offers himself as a sex slave, instead.
    "God, how messed up is that? Escape's not even the top of my list!"

    Western Animation 
  • Futurama spoofed this, along with other Star Trek tropes in "Where No Fan Has Gone Before". Powerful Energy Being (and raging fanboy) Melllvar pits the Planet Express crew against the cast of Star Trek: The Original Series in a battle to see which is more worthy of his devotion.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender uses this when Hama forces Aang and Sokka into one - which Katara has to stop, naturally, leading her to learn blood-bending.
  • The Fairly OddParents! had a variation. An episode where Mark Chang, prince of Yugopotamia, challenges Timmy to "Ditch eh phat". Since the Yugopotamians are creatures terrified of things like flowers, teddy bears, and chocolate, Timmy accepts immediately, expecting an easy time. Then Mark explains he sneezed and meant Death Combat. And he couldn't back out now...

 
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Rick Prime's Free-For-All

Rick Prime puts Rick, the Mortys, and the six other alternate Ricks into a battle to the death, saying the winner will be reunited with Diane, although Rick knows this is a trick.

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Main / InvoluntaryBattleToTheDeath

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