She Will Come for Me - Television Tropes & Idioms

A Rescue Trope with the Distressed Damsel/Dude invoking the likelihood of rescue by a specific person or small group. She Will Come For Me is the most basic version, followed by variations. The Distressed Damsel/Dude has usually been kidnapped but that's not required—s/he can fall down a well, be waiting for the Hero at a rendezvous point, whatever, and the principle is the same.

She Will Come For Me: Bob the Distressed Dude is kidnapped by the Big Bad, who gloats that Bob's rescue is impossible since Nothing Can Stop Us Now. But Bob has faith in Alice and says that She Will Come for Me in the face of danger. Sure enough, Alice shows up Just in Time for a Big Damn Heroes rescue, vindicating Bob's faith. Cue Crowning Moment of Heartwarming and Bob likely declaring "I knew you'd come back!" or "It took you long enough!"

She Won't Come For Me: Bob the Distressed Dude is kidnapped by the Big Bad, who plans to lure Alice into a trap by telling her I Have Your Bob. But maybe Alice is a Jerkass Designated Hero who's made it clear she thinks Bob is The Load. Or maybe Bob is The Atoner who's spun the Heel Face Revolving Door so many times he doesn't think that he deserves to be saved. Either way, Bob declares that he's useless as a hostage, since She Won't Come For Me. Cue double Crowning Moment of Heartwarming and Bob's shock when Alice shows up anyway for a Big Damn Heroes rescue, proving that Alice is really a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and that Bob does have people who care about him.

She Will Come For Me often indicates a character Genre Savvy enough to be sure the hero will show up Just in Time. She Won't Come For Me is a subtrope of Nothing Can Save Us Now in which the character despairs of rescue by a specific person (or small group of people), rather than despairing of being saved in general by rocks falling from the sky, thinking up a daring escape plan, and such. However, She Will Come / She Won't Come For Me are not subversions or inversions of each other; they are equal facets of the same trope.

Like Conscience Makes You Go Back MUST contain the rescuer characters "stopping on their way and realizing they have to (go back to the rescue)," She Will/Won't Come For Me MUST contain the Distressed characters invoking the likelihood of rescue by someone specific: they will argue about it with the Bad Guy, discuss it with their fellow Distressed Designees, or even just think about it in their internal monologue. She Will/Won't Come For Me can overlap with Changed My Mind, Kid when it focuses on the Kid's expectation of whether the Changing Of Mind will occur.

A guaranteed Tearjerker is to subvert this trope: a Distressed Designee believing that S/He Will Come For Me when The Hero doesn't come or arrives much too late, turning the whole thing into a cruel Hope Spot with the Distressed Designee often Dying Alone. There may be versions where The Hero doesn't come and the Distressed Designee didn't expect them to, but expect that variation to be pointless and depressing.

Compare Big Damn Heroes, Changed My Mind, Kid, Conscience Makes You Go Back.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

Samurai Champloo: In the finale, Fuu is kidnapped by thugs using her as bait against Mugen. Fuu tells them that He Won't Come For Me, you idiots, since she believes Mugen won't risk his life for her. Cue CMOH and Fuu's shock when Mugen shows up and tosses away his weapons to save her.
Togari: The first time Itsuki is held hostage to threaten Tobe, Tobe couldn't care less about her. The second time, the now-cynical Itsuki◊ is openly scornful◊ of her kidnapper, since of course Tobe Won't Come For Her. And of course Tobe comes to the rescue, thanks to Character Development. An excellent example of this trope, and explicitly a Call Back.
In the second-to-last chapter of InuYasha, Kagome thinks this pretty much verbatim when she is trapped inside the Shikon no Tama and hears Inuyasha's voice.
Both times Nia Teppelin finds herself captured, she is adament that Simon will come for her. And he does.

Film

The Dark Knight: Used to great effect when Rachel and Harvey are kidnapped. It turns into a Hope Spot by playing straight Rachel's faith to the last second that Batman Will Come For Us, but subverting the Big Damn Heroes moment expected to follow. That juxtaposition is what makes it so sad.
- Even better than that, beautifully done all around. Rachel KNOWS that Batman is coming to save her. But he's not, because the Joker, being savvy enough to know Batman will save Rachel instead of Harvey, switches up the addresses. So Batman saves Harvey instead. Why there wasn't a cop car closer to BOTH addresses than the police station is, though, is kind of a Wallbanger.
Pitch Black: Jack says "He's not coming back, is he?" when Riddick leaves Jack and Imam in the cave. Zigzagged when Riddick WAS going to leave them to die, but Fry convinces him otherwise. Their return prompts Jack to say, "Never had a doubt!"
The Princess Bride has three Will Come For Me moments.
- A variation while Buttercup is held prisoner by the Man in Black.
  Buttercup: No matter where you take me, there's no greater hunter than Prince Humperdinck. He could track a falcon on a cloudy day. He can find you.
- While Buttercup is waiting for Westley to come take her away.
  Buttercup: Any word from Westley?
  Humperdinck: Too soon, my angel. Patience.
  Buttercup: He will come for me.
- A third variation, at the wedding.
  Buttercup: (hearing the sounds of fighting) Here comes my Westley now.
- Of course in the end, Westley doesn't show up on time, causing Buttercup to almost have a Heroic BSOD: "He didn't come..." Then he shows up after all, late for the wedding but Just in Time to face Humperdinck in the bedroom.
Chase Meridian makes a comment about Batman coming to save her in Batman Forever. Riddler replies that he's counting on it.
Lampshaded in Superman Returns:
Lex: No, not that, the other thing. C’mon, I know it’s just dangling off the tip of your tongue. Let me hear it just once, please?
Lois: Superman will stop y—
Lex: WRONG!
Waterworld: Enola is kidnapped by evil smokers, who taunt her that the surly Mariner won't rescue her: "He's not here. And he ain't coming. And no one's gonna save you." Enola retorts that "He'll Come For Me, he will," and gives a speech about the Mariner being a Memetic Badass who will kill them all in their sleep. Of course the Mariner shows up and blows the smokers' base sky-high to save Enola, because "She's my friend."
Megamind: Roxanne has been saved by Metro Man so many times she doesn't even feign concern when Megamind kidnaps her. She (and Megamind) is shocked when Metro Man appears to be killed by one of Megamind's Death Traps. He isn't.
Disney's Peter Pan: Wendy assures the boys that "Peter Pan will save us" from Captain Hook, who then explains to her his plan to kill him with a Time Bomb. It should probably come as no surprise that Pan survives the blast and comes to the rescue.

Literature

In The Bible, the Children of Israel are certain that The Messiah Will Come For Them.
In The Golem's Eye, the second part of The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Nathaniel has Kitty's childhood friend Jacob as hostage in order to lure and arrest her. Jacob informs him she would never come to save him, as they were inseparable as children but they've not seen each other for years. She comes.

Live-Action TV

Angel: When Cordelia is trapped in the Pylea dimension.
"I have friends back in LA. They're gonna come rescue me. Any time now."
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: I know there are moments with the Genre Savvy Scoobies under threat but certain that Buffy Will Come For Them. I just can't think of examples off the top of my head.
- Spike says it repeatedly over the Season 7 episodes Bring on the Night and Showtime.
- When held captive by Glory, Dawn insists repeatedly that Buffy is going to save her.
The Adventures of Superman: "Don't worry. Superman will save us!" OK, not a direct quote, but c'mon, they did it at least once every other episode. Jimmy, Lois, Perry, or Inspector Henderson would be in a trap or some kind of predicament but be confident that Supes would rescue them.
Amy Pond of Doctor Who gives a speech to her newborn daughter about how Rory will come for her. He does.
- When they're about to kill him, the Silence taunt Rory by telling him Amy will let him die alone. She saves him with a machine gun.

Video Games

In Fatal Frame 2, a flashback to Sae and Yae's attempted escape from the village shows Sae thinking this while she is in captivity.
Sae: Yae will come back for me...she will...
In Solatorobo, The Kurvaz capture Elh to use as bait to make Red turn over the medallion, but Elh says that won't work because she betrayed him, tried to sacrifice him in the Rite of Forfeit, and he won't come. He does, though.
In Dragon Age, when the Warden and Alistair are captured by Ser Cauthrien and taken to Fort Drakon, you get the option to either break out yourself or wait for help—and you can specify which two party members (except for Shale) come to break you out, even if they don't like each other...or if they don't like you.

Web Original

In Dubious Company, as Sal is being hauled off for execution she begins fretting. Sue tells her to cut the act, saying she knows Sal is expecting the pirates to save her. Sue is partially right. Sal knows the pirates will try, but she calculated the odds of their success. It was 0%. She's fretting because she made a deal with General Izor to spare them.

Web Original