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alt title(s): The Sadistic Choice "Spider-Man. This is why only fools are heroes — because you never know when some lunatic will come along with a sadistic choice. Let die the woman you love... or suffer the little children. Make your choice, Spider-Man, and see how a hero is rewarded."
The Big Bad has been engaging in kidnapping, and is willing to make a deal.
In exchange for a powerful device, a bribe, or an agreement, he'll set one of two hostages free.
See, he's got your ( crewmate/girlfriend/loving son/mentor/buddy/Side Kick/a Bus Full Of Innocents: pick any two), and he's so generous and fair that he'll release one. But he's only going to release one. So, who's more important, and who are you going to let die?
This is guaranteed to set the Hero into Angst mode, and gives a villain optimum gloating time. Plus, it's fun to watch them squirm!
If the two kidnapped characters haven't been directly at loggerheads with each other earlier that episode (which may lead to a Locked In A Freezer moment for them), they'll represent facets of the hero's life that are in conflict (such as whether his family is more important than his work).
If the hero is a known expert in daring rescues, the villain will try to make sure he doesn't get any ideas by putting the two hostages in separate Death Traps, then informing the hero he only has time to save one. This is usually the hero's cue to prove how wrong the villain is.
A Sadistic Choice doesn't have to involve choosing between two kidnapped characters. Sometimes, it involves a villain forcing a character to choose between people he or she cares about and some defining cause or ideal that he or she has sworn to uphold, or some other situation in which choosing either option will lead to the loss of something or someone important to the character; for example, forcing a Technical Pacifist to violate Thou Shalt Not Kill or let the people he loves die horribly, or forcing someone to give the villain information that will doom a character or a cause (such as the location of a rebel base or the whereabouts of the character) in exchange for the life or safety of another character or group of characters. Many villains in this variant scenario are not above pulling a You Said You Would Let Them Go on the character once the choice is made, just to be a complete bastard.
Given it's such a hard choice, it's no wonder most good guys tend to Take A Third Option. It's practically unheard of for a hero to actually make this choice, and have it carried through before either the villain breaks his promise or the cavalry manage a rescue.
Compare Take A Third Option, Friend Or Idol Decision, Hostage For McGuffin.
Examples
Anime and Manga
- In Digimon Adventure 02, the Digimon Kaiser forces Daisuke to choose which one of his four teammates won't be eaten by a three-headed digimon. When time runs out, Daisuke offers himself in place of them, but then all his teammates show up — the tied-up kids were only shapeshifting digimon.
- In Trigun, the villain Legato Bluesummers forces the main character Vash into making a choice between killing him and thus renouncing everything that he based his life on, or letting his companions die, as Legato is mentally controlling a group of people about to kill them. He kills Legato, saving his companions, and then sinks into a Heroic BSOD in the next episode.
- A variation in Full Metal Panic: Sousuke finds himself in what is obviously a crooked hostage situation, with the terrorists holding his classmate Chidori and his commander Tessa. When they ask him which of the women to release first, he mentally weighs the choices (Chidori gets priority as per SOP, but he was concerned that the clumsy Tessa would be unable to get to safety if things got rough) and ends up having them send Tessa. Of course, the whole thing went to pot regardless...
- In Monster, it's gradually revealed that Johan and Anna's mother was forced to give up only one of the twins to the sadistic Bonaparta as part of a psychological experiment. In an attempt to hide from them, she had told her neighbors that she only had a daughter, and made Johan (who seemed sane at the time) wear a wig and dress to impersonate Anna whenever he left the house. When Bonaparta and his men found her, Johan was still wearing his disguise, so it was impossible to tell which child she let them take away (although it's already known that this was Anna).
- In what may be the most chilling moment in the entire series (no small feat), in the final episode, Dr. Tenma is watching over the comatose Johan, who suddenly rises and with an increasingly distraught expression, asks Tenma whether his mother really chose to give up his sister, or had she confused the two and actually chosen to give up him? Of course, this question turns out to be a daydream by Tenma... Or Is It?
- In the first Fullmetal Alchemist, anime series Ed is forced to make a Sadistic Choice by the homunculi between getting his brother back to the way he was before their human transmutation attempt, which would require killing several convicts (whom he could see and happened to be watching) to do it, and allowing Lust to kill Al by destroying his blood seal. But then Scar shows up in a Big Damn Heroes moment and destroys the cylinders of red water necessary to perform the transmutation.
- In Bleach, Inoue Orihime is forced to work for Aizen in order to save the lives of her friends, who don't even know they are being held hostage. To make things even worse, Aizen later reveals that the only reason he kidnapped her was to lure her friends and the The Cavalry into a trap.
- Soichiro Yagami of Death Note is forced to decide between saving his daughter's life and giving the responsible organization a weapon of effortless mass murder.
- Also, Light indirectly forces Rem to choose between letting Misa die or killing L to protect her, knowing that it would result in her own death. She chose the latter.
- In D.C. II SS as part of the main plot, Otome Asakura turn into Heroic BSOD as she was forced to choose between saving everybody in the entire island by withering up the tree that would cause her love, the main protagonist Yoshiyuki Sakurai, to vanish from existence, or sit back doing nothing and stay with her love till the end, leaving the tree go rampant that could potentially cause the end of the world.
- At the breaking point that after the creator of the tree Sakura Yoshino and Otomes' grandfather vanished in two ill-fated attempts to keep the tree under control, Yoshiyuki finally being told the tale of his origin. Totally aware of his fate if the tree withered, he convinced Otome that stopping the tree is the only option. There were no third option, Otome wither up the tree. Eventually Yoshiyuki vanishs in an extremely tragic way.
- Mention in Naruto, when Kakashi is giving Team 7 their Secret Test Of Character and he asks Sakura what she would do if he threatened to kill Sasuke unless she kills Naruto. Much later we find out this actually happened to Nagato after Hanzo attacked his group out of paranoia: he had to kill Yahiko or else Hanzo would kill Konan. When Nagato freezes up at the thought of hurting one of his friends, Yahiko grabs the arm Nagato was holding a kunai in and stabs himself with it.
Comic Books
- In Y: The Last Man Alter puts a gun to the head of one of the Hartle twins and offers the other a choice – either reveal the location of the last man on Earth or "live the rest of your miserable life knowing you could have saved your sister."
- In Garth Ennis's run The Punisher puts Daredevil through the "choice between ideals" version. The Punisher is out to snipe a vicious mob figure; Daredevil attempts to stop him, insisting that the mob boss needs to be taken out legally, through the justice system. The Punisher manages to incapacitate Daredevil and bind him up with a gun with one bullet in his hands pointed at the Punisher's own head, such that the only way Daredevil could stop the Punisher's vigilante justice would be to violate his own ideals by fatally shooting Punisher himself. Daredevil chooses to pull the trigger, at which point it is revealed that the setup was also a false dilemma: the gun had no firing pin.
- Jason Todd pulls one of these on Batman when he comes Back From The Dead years after his murder at the hands of the Joker, forcing him to choose between letting Jason kill the Joker or killing Jason himself, so Batman would break his one rule or fail to Save The Villain; to Jason, his own life meant less that knowing that Batman loves him.
Fan Fic
- In chapter 18
 of the Teen Titans fanfic "Maiden Of Stone", the villain Sedaris captures Raven and Terra, then forces Beast Boy to choose which one of them he will spare, an act which, according to one reviewer, brought Sedaris "up to Slade level on the evil scale". He even mentions Sophie's Choice.
- A Sailor Moon fanfic in which magic from the Silver Crystal allows Michiru to become pregnant with Haruka's child has this at the climax - the story eventually reveals that Sailor Senshi are supposed to be sterile to prevent them from being forced to choose between duty and child and having the baby will kill Michiru. In the end, Haruka has to choose between saving her lover or her child. She chooses Michiru, but in a twist, because the baby's life force was linked to Michiru, neither dies.
Film
- In Batman Forever, The Riddler gives Batman a choice to save Robin or the girl. He not only figures out it's a false choice and Riddler will kill both, he rescues both. He's the goddamn Batman.
- Well, since it's one of the Schumacher films, it's debatable whether he counts as Batman. But he is the goddamn Val Kilmer, so there's still awesome to go around.
- This scene actually happened in the comics, albeit in a different manner. Robin was given the choice to save either Batman or a judge from Two-Face. It's subverted when Robin chooses the judge, but forgets about Dent's obsession with the number two; there was a second trap in place and the judge was killed. Robin never really had a chance.
- Happens in The Dark Knight, where the Joker ties Bruce Wayne's ex-girlfriend/childhood friend and Harvey Dent to explosives in different parts of the city. Tragically, Batman doesn't Take A Third Option quickly enough. Only Harvey is rescued (due to the Joker sadistically switching their locations), and Batman even botches that. Goddamn Batman.
- TDK's Joker is in love with these. Reveal Batman's identity, or people will die. Kill the accountant or I blow up a hospital. Save Harvey or save Rachel. Blow up the other boat or be blown up by them (or me). And arguably the worst - Break your "one rule", or watch Gotham's finest kill a child. Joker doesn't just do this out of raw sadism, though, but the added intention of showing people that underneath everyone is capable of being a monster like himself.
- Apparently a big fan of Saw.
- He never quite fulfills his part of the bargain, either. First by naming the wrong locations for the hostages, then by exploding the hospital without knowing the accountant is still alive. He probably exchanged the boat detonators as well, but that's for Wild Mass Guessing.
- The Joker didn't switch any detonators. In my humble opinion, all three detonators, (Hostage's, Convict's The Joker's own detonators) detonate both bombs. The only solution was what to ensure that no detonator was used.
- Somehow, even worse, the Joker does not even know which one (Rachel or Dent) that he actually cares more about, he just switches it because he realizes doesn't need to know who Batman cares about, therefore not only knowing more about Batman, but corrupting Dent.
- In the first Spider-Man movie referenced in the above quote, the Green Goblin offers Spidey this choice between perennial love interest Mary Jane and a cable car full of innocents. (He rescues both, but is forced to reject Mary Jane out of fear of his harsh superhero life. It all works out by the second one.)
- A similar situation happened with Gwen Stacy in the comics, but Spidey's attempt to Take A Third Option didn't go as well as it did in the movie.
- The Proposition is based entirely around this principle. In order to convince The Sheriff to spare the life of his younger, mentally handicapped brother, the protagonist must seek out and kill his older, violently insane brother. He tries to Take A Third Option by getting his older brother to help rescue the younger one, but it doesn't work, and by the end, he's the only one left.
- Sophie's Choice (originally a book). Upon arrival at Auschwitz, Sophie is told to choose which of her two children will go to the gas chamber immediately, and which will live for some time longer in the camp. Since the story is realistic, Take A Third Option doesn't come up. The movie was popular enough that the term "Sophie's Choice" is occasionally used to describe similar sadistic choices.
- This sort of thing did happen there, too, and even before it, as this troper recalls reading in the nonfiction book Treblinka. On leaving the ghetto, parents had to choose which road to send their children down, the left or the right. One of them led to another ghetto and hard labor; the other to the titular death camp. They were not told which was which.
- Although no kidnapping was involved, the choice faced by Princess Leia in Star Wars of giving up the location of the Rebel base or watching her home planet of Alderaan be destroyed by the Death Star was a perfect example. Especially since, in a notorious Kick The Dog moment that kicked Grand Moff Tarkin across the Moral Event Horizon, he ordered the planet destroyed anyway after Leia gave a false location in hopes of keeping the Rebellion alive. Tarkin's reasoning? "Dantooine is too remote to give an effective demonstration." Alderaan, on the other hand, was a core world.
- There's also Lando Calrissian's deal with Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back. Things in the EU like the radio dramatization and an Infinities comic that involves him refusing make his line about "I had no choice. They arrived before you did." much clearer. He was Baron Administrator of an entire city, and to save it and get The Empire to leave, he had to betray a friend. Of course, Vader never mentioned the torture, or that Boba Fett would get Solo, and he lied about leaving Solo's friends on Cloud City. At some point during this Lando protested strongly enough that his city was explicitly threatened, and eventually he tried to Take A Third Option, which was... marginally successful. Things worked out well enough in the end.
- In Punisher: War Zone, Jigsaw and his Ax Crazy brother Loony Bin Jim give the eponymous protagonist a literal Sadistic Choice in the form of a Shoot The Dog scenario: if Frank chooses between killing either the Donatellis or Micro, the brothers releases the ones who were spared, otherwise they just kill all three hostages. Although Micro offers himself to Frank to spare the Donatellis, the latter instead elects to Take A Third Option.
Literature
- The New Heroes novel Sakkara plays this terrifyingly straight, to one of the teenage heroes, with no third choice. In a young adults novel of all things.
- In the Discworld novel Carpe Jugulum, Granny Weatherwax faces a complicated birth that could either kill the mother or the child; she saves the mother because she is still young and will be able to have children in the future. There is some unrelated but great moral concerns given during her explanation.
- Mrs. Patternoster, the Slice midwife, posits that the choice should have been up to the husband/father; Granny retorts that he's done nothing to deserve being hurt so badly (reasoning that she is better able to bear the burden of a Sadistic Choice than he is). Meanwhile Death quietly takes the soul of the baby and makes a discreet exit.
- Dean Koontz's Velocity revolves around this concept. Throughout the novel, protagonist Billy Wiles is sent notes from an unknown serial killer offering him two choices, both of which will cause the killer to kill someone, the victim being determined by the choice Billy makes.
- In A Series Of Unfortunate Events, Count Olaf, disguised as Detective Dupin, allows the children to choose which one of them makes a 'lucky' escape. Snicket calls it a 'Hobson's Choice.'
- Snicket is, however, wrong. Hobson's choice is "take it or leave it." This is more of a Morton's Fork, where all outcomes are equally undesirable.
- In Under the Yoke, a character suffers flashbacks to a Draka brainwashing technique that was used on him: being given control of the switch that directed current into one of two electric chairs, he being sat in one and his father in the other, so that he could only save his own life by committing patricide.
- In Stephen King's short story, Riding the Bullet, the protagonist has to make a decision: either him, or his mother will die soon. He saves himself and chooses his mother.
Live Action TV
- The concept is spoofed in an episode of Friends. The topic of "if you had to give up either food or sex" comes up. Immediately Ross says he'd give up food. Phoebe counters with "sex or dinosaurs." Ross's face falls, and he says "it's like Sophie's Choice!"
- Joey, realizing choosing sex or food was hard, replied: "I want girls on bread!" A similar dialogue comes later:
Chandler: Hey, Joe, I gotta ask. The girl from the Xerox place buck naked (holds up one hand), or, or a big tub of jam. (holds up the other hand)
Joey: Put your hands together.
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer: A powerful troll gives Xander the choice to release either Willow or Anya.
- Firefly: Niska captures Mal and Wash, and has Zoe choose between them. It's subverted when she chooses her husband without stopping to think, before he even finishes asking her to choose. Niska is so irritated at being interrupted in mid-taunt that he decides to be extra generous and throw in Mal's ear.
- Jubal Early pulls the variant of the Sadistic Choice on Simon in "Objects in Space" — if Simon doesn't help him find River so that he can take her in, Early will go back to the engine room where he has Kaylee tied up and rape her.
- In an episode of 24, a man is given a choice by a terrorist to either allow his son or wife to leave (he's holding them at gunpoint to force him to pick something up for him). After agonizing about it, he picks his son to be released. The terrorist then releases his wife instead, explaining that he only did that to learn who was more important as a hostage.
- Nearly the entire first season is a series of Sadistic Choices for Jack.
- In an episode of Spooks, Fiona and Danny have been taken hostage and Fiona has to choose between her husband Adam (a fellow spy) and her son, she has no choice but to lure Adam into the abductors' trap. Adam then has to choose which one will die. But before Adam gets to choose, Danny sacrifices himself.
- In The X-Files, it's at least very strongly implied that Mulder's father had to choose if his son or his daughter would be taken for experimentation.
- In the season (series?) finale of Blood Ties, a demon makes Vicki choose between the life of one of her friends, or the power to save the world, which includes reversal of her near-blindness. She chooses her friend.
- In the much darker Season 8 of Smallville, Lex attempts to pay back Clark (for whatever reason he hates Clark this season) and Lana (who stole a prototype super-powered suit in the previous episode) reveals that the suit absorbs Kryptonite radiation. He then offers the sadistic choice- let Lana absorb the fuel in a kyrptonite bomb on the top of the Daily Planet building and never be able to come near Clark again, or walk away and let the bomb go off.
Video Games
- In Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, the player is offered by Mephisto the choice between freeing Jean Grey or Nightcrawler from his realm. Only the one chosen is saved and the other becomes brainwashed by Mephisto and aids him in the boss battle following the choice. S/he pulls a Heroic Sacrifice when you defeat the devil afterwards. Bonus Wall Banger points if you have the 360 DLC which include, yes, Nightcrawler as a playable character.
- There's even a wallbanger easter egg in the epilogue scene, if the player saves Jean over Nightcrawler. Mystique becomes overcome with grief over her son's death and lashes out by assassinating Professor Xavier. There's a scene where the X-Men are attending Xavier's funeral, and one of them is f***'ing NIGHTCRAWLER! Yeah, that made this troper's head hurt too.
- In Kingdom Hearts 2, the villain Xaldin makes Beast (from Disney's Beauty And The Beast) decide whether he wants to save Belle or the Magic Rose that can change him back. Belle manages to save both herself and the rose. To Beast's credit, he did choose Belle just prior.
- A minor variant in Super Smash Bros Brawl, where Petey Piranha kidnaps both Princesses Peach and Zelda. Kirby (or rather, the player) can only save one princess; the other gets nabbed by Wario. This subverts heroic attempts to break them both out in that, while it is theoretically possible to deplete both cage's life bars by attacking Petey Piranha's head, the game picks a princess for you if this is the case. Nice try, hero. Both end up fine near the end anyways.
- In the PS2 game, Radiata Stories the major Road Cone is whether or not the human hero joins the girl and the forces of non-humanity, or stays with humans. This results in two Multiple Endings, one where humanity survives but the girl dies; or humanity is replaced by elves and other creatures but the guy gets to be with the girl.
- In the final episode of Desperate Housewives: The Game, your mobster ex-boyfriend gives you a gun and orders you to shoot either your husband or your other ex-boyfriend (long story). Whether you shoot your husband, ex-boyfriend or just take the very obvious third option and shoot the gangster, the end result is the same - the gun wasn't loaded, he was just testing you. That's almost as sadistic as the bad writing enforced on you the entire game.
- In Mass Effect, during the attack on Virmire, you are given the choice between going to reinforce positions held by two of your officers: Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko and Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams. The one you do not choose to help will die.
- This troper went through every one of the stages of mourning... And then went back to an old save and slogged through the entire Vermire mission again to take the other choice.
- This troper had no problem with it at all because he liked neither of the two.
- The choice is especially effective as due to the lead-up, you're given numerous occasions to reconsider. Massive indecision follows.
- If you become a complete Renegade, you can decide to have the council die, then explicitly state you wanted them dead specifically to get rid of them so humans could become the new Council. Even Captain Anderson expresses utter shock, though Ambassador Udina just fine and dandy with it. Utterly chilling.
- In Lost Magic, Diva of the Twilight holds her own sister Trista hostage for Issac's wand, which is one of the MacGuffins. And no, you don't get a third option. Due to the game's morals, Issac will turn evil and become Diva's subordinate if you decide to hold onto the wand.
- So, wait. If you don't give the baddie the macguffin you become her minion and she gets it anyway? That's just stupid.
- Further spoilers ahoy: You still have the wand yourself. But on the evil path, you have to kill off the other sages. When you defeat the last one, if you choose to finish off said sage, you get the Bad Ending where Diva kills Issac. Even if you don't, you still will get a Downer Ending.
- In the final case of Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice For All, after you learn that your client Matt Engarde was the one who ordered assassin Shelly de Killer to kill Juan Corrida, you are, towards the end of the final day of the case, forced to decide the verdict of the trial. Oh, and your sidekick Maya is being held hostage by de Killer, and the only way he will release her is if you get a Not Guilty verdict for Engarde. But if you do that, an innocent woman will almost assuredly be convicted in his place. The way to win is to Take A Third Option and convince de Killer to abandon his contract with Engarde, freeing Maya and letting you give Engarde his justly-deserved Guilty verdict.
- Grand Theft Auto IV gives you a choice of two paths at the end of the game: You can either choose to participate in a mission with Dimitri, the Russian crook who screwed you over earlier in the game and who you've been trying to kill up to this point, or not participate in the mission and instead, to go and kill Dimitri. If you choose to kill Dimitri, the mob boss who set up the mission for the both of you will show up at Roman's wedding and kill Niko's love interest, Kate. If you choose to do the mission, Dimitri will show up at the wedding and kill Niko's cousin and best friend, Roman. Ironically, it was Kate who advised you to go kill Dimitri, while it was Roman who advised you to participate on the mission with him.
- Fable 2 ends with you having to make one of three choices: use the power of the Spire to resurrect everyone in your family Lucien killed — your husband/wife, your kids, your dog, even your long-dead sister comes back for a while — or use it to resurrect the thousands that Lucien killed to power up the Spire. Or you can choose to take 1,000,000 gold, but that's both a major dick move and outside the bounds of this trope. It's not quite a Sadistic Choice, as under normal circumstances all of these people would stay dead, but still a good source of angst if you're looking for one.
- In the Heaven's Feel arc of Fate/Stay Night, you have to choose between stopping Tohsaka to save the one you love, Sakura, who will inevitably go on a killing rampage, or killing said love and upholding your borrowed ideal.
- In Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon for the DS (Marth's game) in one of the early chapters the player has to choose one character to stay behind as decoy, thereby losing the character
- The effect is completely lost on the players that sacrifice Jeigan or Gordin (both are considered completely worthless)
- A slightly different spin on this occurs in Call of Duty: World at War during the Soviet campaign level Eviction. After being ordered to kill wounded Germans crawling on the ground in the streets of Berlin, you and your squadmates stumble upon three unarmed German soldiers cornered in a subway entrance. Your Sergeant gives you the choice of gunning them down yourself or letting your vengeful Red Army comrades throw Molotovs at them.
- Later in that same game, a more traditional Sadistic Choice occurs when Sergeant Roebuck and Private Polonsky are attacked by a trio of Japanese soldiers pretending to surrender. It's impossible to save both as shooting one set of soldiers attacking one member of the duo causes the other group to succeed in their suicidal attack on the other. This causes the surviving NPC to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge when the time comes to Hold The Line.
- Rare example not offered to the story's hero: Torn in Jak II has to make basically a Love Interest or Underground Movement Decision. He chooses Ashelin over the Underground, and as a result Praxis gets his hands on the Precursor Stone.
- The Granstream Saga makes the player suffer through a particularly sadistic version of the classic Sadistic Choice. In order to power up your Mac Guffin enough to kill the final Big Bad, you have to kill one of your two love interests and let it consume her soul. And, sadly, the game doesn't let you Take A Third Option and try to fight without sacrificing either one.
- Near the end of Breath Of Fire II, you're asked to sacrifice one of your party members in order to get the ultimate dragon power. It's a Secret Test Of Character - you pass by refusing to sacrifice any of them.
- inFAMOUS: Kessler pulls this on Cole. Cole is given the choice to save six doctors, or save Trish, his girlfriend. The doctors are more relevant in context, because the setting is a city under quarantine due to disease, and the quarantine has been causing basic social services to fail while gang violence escalates to the point of insanity. If Cole goes for the doctors, Trish dies. But there is a twist if you go for Trish instead; the choice is rigged and Trish will be a decoy, with the real Trish hidden with the doctors Cole has chosen not to save. Notable for two reasons: First, the hero doesn't get to Take A Third Option, and second, it's actually a subversion. Kessler isn't doing it because he's a sadist, he's doing it because his ultimate goal is to harden Cole against emotional trauma earlier in his life than he would be otherwise.
Webcomics
Western Animation
- The Simpsons spoofs a variation of this in one of their Halloween Specials. The Earth is doomed and the people have to evacuate to Mars, the guard of the spaceship tells Lisa that she can go but only can choose one of her parents. Before he finishes the phrase Lisa says "Mom!".
- Although somehow this results in Maggie going with them as well...
- In the Transformers Animated Pilot Movie, Starscream pulls one of these to show that the Decepticons in this series are no laughing matter: after giving the Autobots a sound beating, he tosses Bumblebee into a train car that holds the Mayor of Detroit, the human sidekick's father, and various other civilians, then flies it to the top of a building, giving the Autobots one megacycle (about an hour) to surrender the All Spark to him before he kills the hostages and, to raise the stakes even more, attempts find the All Spark the hard way, cutting a swath of destruction across the Earth until he finds it himself. And to complicate things further, none of these Autobots can fly... So the third option involves using the All Spark as bait while they attempt a rescue mission.
- In the three-part "The Ultimate Doom" episode of Transformers Generation 1, Megatron plans to bring Cybertron into Earth's orbit in order to destroy Earth and harvest the energy. If the plan fails, however, Cybertron will be destroyed. Megatron forces Optimus Prime to choose which planet will be lost and, notably, he doesn't Take A Third Option.
- Lampshaded ("Great. The old 'save your partner or lose the weapon gag'") and served with extra sadism in Armada. The "partner" turned out to be The Mole.
- Hilariously subverted in an old old episode of Adventures Of Sonic The Hedgehog. Sonic turns up and impresses all the locals (who are sheep, literally) with his speed, and Robotnik builds a massive race-course and challenges Sonic to a race, then convinces all the sheep (all of them) to bet all their money and then some on Sonic... and then kidnaps Tails, forcing this kind of choice (Sonic either throws the race, or Tails gets it). He then turns the completely-broke sheep into his slaves, the scene shifts to an Egyptian style environment where the sheep are as slaves building pyramids... and then Sonic and Tails turn up and completely wreck Robotnik. Then again, this was in the days where American/UK Sonic actually thought about things before he did them.
Card Games
- The Yu Gi Oh! card "Painful Choice", as the name implies, is all about putting your opponent in such a bind: you choose five cards from your deck, and he has to choose the one you get to keep (all the others are discarded to the Graveyard). Ideally, the player who uses this card is supposed to pick their five most powerful cards, meaning that whatever happens one of them is going to end up in his hand, and even then this card can combo with other effects that can result in the player getting all five cards regardless of what the opponent chooses. as in general, it's much easier for a player to get cards from their graveyard than it is to fetch them from their deck. (Unsurprisingly, it's banned from tournament play.)
- This was used in a duel in the Anime by Kaiba's adopted father. the five cards in question were the five pieces of Exodia, which he then used to summon Exodia Necros, a particularly nasty card that is immune to various things depending on which part/s are in the graveyard. All five being in there, it was immune to damn-near everything
- In Magic, there's Choice of Damnations, which forces your opponent to pick a number. You then choose whether they lose life equal to that number or if they sacrifice cards they control until they're left with only that number of cards in play. Obviously, if they pick a number too low, you just force them to go on with only a few cards in play, but if they pick one too high their life can get dangerously low.
- Another example is "Gifts Ungiven". Gifts Ungiven lets you get any four cards from your deck (although they can't be duplicates). Then your opponent has to pick two to go into your hand, and two to go into your graveyard. Most decks that use Gifts Ungiven exploit this, by choosing four cards that ensure you get what you want no matter what the opponent picks.
- The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine expansion of the Star Trek CCG has a card, based off of the episode "Move Along Home", entitled "Pick One to Save Two". In the episode, Quark must choose one of his three pieces to "die" in order to allow the other two to continue. This card, a dilemma, presents much the same choice.
Tabletop Games
Real Life
- Some terrorist groups have been known to use civilians as shields.
- Relatively void against the US since it trains for accuracy with its standard rifle and the Marines are well known to be crack shots even if they're not the designated marksman or a sniper.
- It still works great against police, and prevents the use of grenades or squad support weapons even if the above is accurate and not a hugely naive statement about a military that bombs villages to get the suspected terrorists within.
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