Troperville
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"Son, just out of curiosity, where did you hide my cigaret-"
"-Toilet."
Falls into two major categories, though other variants are possible.
Version 1: Alice, for whatever reason, hands over a possession to Bob and asks Bob not to give it back until X happens. Example: "No matter how much I beg, don't let me have my comic book back until I've finished my homework so I'm not distracted."
Version 2: A variant of Self Restraint. Alice allows herself to be tied up or imprisoned and instructs Bob not to let her loose—usually because she is about to be Not Herself in some way, or acquire some dangerous power.
Either way, Alice is doing something she knows is for the best, but she also knows that she'll want out later and needs someone else to keep her in line. She will always tell Bob, "Remember, you can't give in, no matter how much I beg you." Later, Alice will almost invariably beg Bob to give the object back/ let her out of prison.
Whether Bob gives in or not is dependent on the genre of the story. It may be played for laughs with Bob taking the directions too literally and refusing to free Alice even when he obviously should, either out of malice or stupidity. If Bob is especially stupid, he may go the opposite route and let Alice out prematurely when she asks him. This may lead to dire consequences if Alice is a danger to those around her, or may be played for laughs with Alice rebuking him for letting her go.
Examples
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- Light says this to L while requesting imprisonment in Death Note. L is more than willing to oblige.
- In Earth X Captain America gave the Black Panther the reality-controlling Cosmic Cube after taking it away from the Red Skull. When a mind-controlling teen starts taking over the world, he returns to ask for it back, but the Panther refuses, just as Cap asked. Later, in Universe X, the Panther also refuses Captain Mar-Vell, but hands the Cube over when Mar-Vell reveals that he's been subconsciously using it himself. Oops.
- In Venom, the Batman realises he has become addicted to the titular drug and asks Alfred to lock him in the Batcave for a month. In a slight subversion, Alfred asks to let him out early, but Batman refuses. When he finally emerges, he's wearing the Beard Of Sorrow, but is, nevertheless, magnificent. Of course he is: He's the goddam Batman.
- Comedic example: In Young Frankenstein, the title character locks himself in a room with his newly re-captured monster in order to counsel it and gain its trust. He gives his assistants explicit instructions not to interfere or let him out of the room, no matter how much he begs them to. It takes the doctor all of three seconds to change his mind once the monster wakes up and starts approaching him.
- By Revenge of the Pink Panther, Clouseau's instructions to manservant Cato to continually surprise him with martial arts attacks, no matter what else he may be told, have become quite frustrating for Clouseau because Cato is now doing it all the time.
- Possibly the oddest version happens in Fight Club, where the protagonist's other personality sets this up. Tyler tells his moles at the police department that if he (the protagonist) shows up later to tell them about Project Mayhem, they should cut his balls off.
- Though, this is not specific to HIS character. Earlier on in the film they attack another man who was holding a press conference about Fight Club, and threatened to do the same thing to him.
- In X-2: X-Men United, General Stryker tells his men to kill anyone approaching the room where a brainwashed Professor X is using his mental powers to find and kill all the mutants even if it is him, most likely assuming that Mystique will try to impersonate him.
- Not that it matters, as Mystique doesn't even come near the room before Magneto triggers the guards' grenades. But the thought counts.
- Happens in Tropic Thunder, after drug addict Portnoy is informed they are close to a heroin factory and asks to get tied to a tree. His cries to get untied are ignored by the group.
- Kung Pow! Enter the Fist has an odd example, in that it's not that the begging was ignored, it was never even done. ChosenOne, attempting to emulate Betty's feat of strength, tells a group of peasants to hit him repeatedly with sticks (including a repeated Groin Attack) until he gives the signal, or throws them dramatically off of his body. They beat him to unconsciousness.
- "D-... do you think that was the signal?"
- The Silver Chair: The Prince has to be tied to a chair because he's about to have an episode of madness, and he orders Puddleglum and the kids not to free him no matter what he says. Once tied up, he begs to be released in the name of Aslan. The protagonists let him loose, and it turns out that he was Not Himself before; at the same hour every day when he is tied to the chair, he is in his right mind, and letting him go broke the spell.
- The Odyssey: Odysseus asks his men to tie him to the mast so he can hear the Sirens but can't escape to go to them. He begs to be released while he can hear the music, but his men have their ears stopped with wax to keep from hearing the Sirens, so they ignore him. This makes this Older Than Dirt.
- Almost the exact same thing happens in the second Percy Jackson And The Olympians, but Annabeth still has her knife, so she cuts the ropes, and Percy has to go after her. He realizes she can't hear them underwater, so he makes a giant bubble to keep them under and let her breathe.
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Dumbledore entreats Harry to make him drink all the potion in the Horcrux cave, no matter how much he begs to stop.
- A more serious take on this occurs in the sixth book of Animorphs. Jake has been taken over by an alien invader that has complete control over his body and full access to his memories, and the rest of the group decide to tie him up until it starves to death.
- In the Star Trek New Frontier book Stone and Anvil, Captains Picard and Calhoun have their AIs (Data and Morgan Lefler, respectively) refuse to let them issue orders when approached by a ship crewed by a race they suspect can telepathically convince any creature that they want to go along with them.
- Friends has Monica tell Joey not to let her open any more of her wedding presents until Chandler gets home. Five seconds later she asks for another one. In a subversion Joey immediately complies. He's no fool; she's a proven obsessive-compulsive with freakish upper-body strength.
- Something similar happened in ALF, and that time it was Brian who let Alf get free.
- In an episode of That's My Bush!, Dubya accidentally takes some ecstasy pills (thinking they were aspirin) and instructs The Ditz to lock him in a bedroom and not let him out no matter what so he won't be able to mess up the anti-drug conference taking place at the White House. Unfortunately, she ends up letting him out. That's right. She's dumb enough to be tricked by a high George W. Bush.
- Dubya did display a tiny bit of Genre Savvy before the drugs took effect, though. As soon as The Ditz closed the door, Dubya started screaming "HELP! PRINCESS! OH GOD IT'S HORRIBLE!". She immediately opens the door and comes face to face with a smug looking Dubya saying "No...that's what I told you NOT to do!"
- Variation on 3rd Rock from the Sun. Harry tells his bartender boss (this was when he worked in the town bar) to insist that he stay and work if he asks to leave with Vicki. Vicki comes up and Harry asks to leave. The bartender complies with Harry's plan, but Harry becomes more insistent, eventually launching into a rant starting with "Well thanks a lot, you son of a bitch!"
- In the episode of Star Trek The Next Generation "Clues" the entire crew, apart from Data, had their memory erased by aliens who didn't want their existence known. Picard orders Data never to tell the rest of the crew what had happened. It doesn't quite work out as planned due to several pieces of evidence that show that the were missing a day, so they end up going back to the aliens' region of space. The end up convincing the aliens to erase their memories again only this time they are more careful about not leaving any evidence of the missing time.
- Which leads to a massive case of Fridge Logic: all it takes is the Enterprise to go to a starbase for regular maintenance for them and realizing their clocks don't match up for the cycle to begin all over again.
- Not positive, but pretty sure the episode techno-babbled its way out of that by saying the Negative Space Wedgie of the day was capable of displacing the ship through both time and space. As such, the clocks being out of sync didn't mean anything; evidence that they had been active for a missing day was the key.
- Not to mention why once the Captain contradicted his previous order (which did not include a "No Matter How Much I Beg" Clause, Data didn't simply reveal the truth. Especially because he knew doing so would prevent the crew from facing the very danger they had sought to avoid by his keeping the existence of the hostile aliens a secret.
- Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks - aversion. The Doctor holds Davros' life in his hands as he forces Davros to order the destruction of the Dalek program. The Doctor then tells Davros to announce that his order cannot be countermanded but before Davros can relay the order his PA comes in a saves the day for him. Davros quickly shouts "Belay that last order! Belay that last order!"
- This happened as a matter of course in early seasons Buffy The Vampire Slayer, as Oz's lycanthropy turned him into a Cold Blooded Jelly Doughnut. Further, a similar situation crops up for Xander in The Pack, when he is imbued via Primal ritual with the spiritual essence of a psychotic hyena.
- In the last episode of Coupling, Susan wants to have a natural childbirth, and tells Steve that she's not to be given an epidural unless she asks for it three times; his very first "are you sure?" gets him thrown clear through the delivery room doors.
- Hannah Montana has an episode where Miley gives Lilly her checkbook for her new bank-account and tells her not to give it back. Leads to a hilarious "Miley doesn't live here anymore" moment when Lilly doesn't give it back.
- Calvin And Hobbes: Calvin asks Hobbes to tie him up so he can escape from the ropes a la Houdini. But he can't quite get himself free, and then his parents call him for dinner...
- When Linus from Peanuts tries to kick his security blanket habit, he literally invokes this trope as he gives the blanket to Snoopy (possibly the origin of this trope, now that I think about it).
- Actually, this happened at least twice. The first time, Linus handed his blanket to Charlie Brown, who gave in the moment Linus begged to have his blanket back. Snoopy, however, did not give in at all - thereby causing Linus to have a nervous breakdown.
- Although that time he actually kicked the habit - just in time for someone to buy him a new blanket and start the cycle over.
- Happened in the comic strip Bloom County when Steve Dallas enlisted Opus' help in quitting cigarettes. He lasted 47 minutes before saying "give me a %$#*& cigarette before I stick you in a blender." Opus refuses, and Dallas quickly goes Axe Crazy on him.
- Earlier in the strip, this was done with the Binkleys, father and son; the source of the page quote.
- Except it's not actually a case of the trope, since the younger Binkley stole his father's cigarettes and refused to return them- the elder Binkley was never a willing participant and never invoked the trope.
Video Games
- In the Diablo backstory, Tal Rasha gives his followers one of these orders after inserting Baal's soulstone into his own body. Unfortunately, no one told Marius.
- Dojo in Xiaolin Showdown makes himself a special prison because every thousand years or so he grows a second head and becomes totally evil for a day(...). He then instructs the monks not to let him free no matter what until the next day. Omi, of course, quickly falls for one of his tricks.
- Rugrats: After raiding the cookie jar gives her a stomach ache from Hell, Angelica orders the babies to stop her from eating cookies ever again, "Even if I beg, even if I cry, even if I threaten to beat your baby brains in!" Hilarity predictably ensues.
- Besides the above page quote, there's the episode of Spongebob Squarepants where Mr. Krabs gives SpongeBob his wallet and instructs him not to give it to him while he's on his date with Mrs. Puff. Before the date even starts, Krabs is begging him to buy something. When SpongeBob give in and brings it, Krabs berates him for spending all his money. It goes back and forth for a while until SpongeBob snaps, gives Mr. Krabs a manic tirade, and leaves.
- In Captain Planet, when Gaia and Doctor Blight are in a Body Swap, Blight apparently forgot to tell her assistant her Evil Plan, because before switching back, Gaia instructs him to do a bunch of eco-friendly things, no matter how much she tells him to stop later.
- On Legion Of Super Heroes, in Brain Drain, Brainiac 5 locks himself in a containment chamber and makes this request when concerned that an interface with other Coluans will make him dangerously unstable. Which it does, but when things go wrong the Legion breaks him out of the chamber anyway. But that all takes a backseat to the Find The Cure plot.
- Looney Tunes had this one; it was one of the episodes where Sylvester mistakes a baby kangaroo for a giant mouse. At one point asks to be locked in a box with it so he can finally catch it, giving instructions to his son not to open it so the kangaroo doesn't escape. Naturally, he gets beaten senseless, while his son admires his dad's dedication.
- In an episode of King Of The Hill, Dale asks to be locked in a small vent with a raccoon so that he can capture/kill it. Dale orders Hank and the others not to let him out until it is subdued, no matter how much he begs and screams. Naturally, once he's locked in there, he begins begging and screaming to be let out. Hank lets him (and the raccoon) out, and Dale chides him with, "I give you one little thing to do, and you screw it up."
- Done multiple times within the space of one episode of Garfield and Friends with Jon Arbuckle's Little Black Book.
- In an episode of Camp Lazlo, Scoutmaster Lumpus wanted some time alone, so he told the scouts not to help him while he was fishing. Later, he calls for help, and Hilarity Ensues as the scouts debate whether they should 'help him by helping him' or 'help him by not helping him'.
Webcomics
- In Skin Horse, Tip gives this order upon being possibly infected with lycanthropy. But:
Tip: When night falls, we'll know if I've been infected. Until then...no matter how much I plead, no matter what I may say, do not open this door.
*SLAM*
Tip: Wait. There's no bathroom in here.
Unity: Nice try, monster!
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