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redirected from Main.TheSadisticChoice
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."
"Heroes are the ones who make the hard choices."
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: 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 Mc Guffin.
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?
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."
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.
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.
- 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.
- 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 very sadistic. 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.
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 "Maskerade", Granny Weatherwax tends to both an ill cow and a dying child. After playing Poker with Death for their lives, she is given a choice between saving the child or the cow. Without hesitation, she chooses the child. Her reasoning is that while the animal will be valuable, the child could become anything.
- Of course she did. The cow was her ante.
- She has a similar choice at the beginning of "Carpe Jugulum" where a complicated birth could either kill the mother or the child; she saves the mother rather than risk losing both.
- That second probably doesn't count, it's made clear that the baby is too damaged to save and keeping it alive would be a Fate Worse Than Death.
- No. It is made clear that she can either save the child or the mother. She chooses to save the mother because she is still young and will be able to have children in the future. Their is some unrelated but great moral concerns given during her explanation.
- 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.
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!"
- 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. 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.
- 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.
Video Games
- In Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, the player is offered this choice between Jean Grey and Nightcrawler. Unusually, only the one chosen can be saved. Actually, depending on your choice, you can save the other too, as long as you're willing to go to Hell and back for them.
- 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.
- 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.
- In Lost Magic, Diva of the Twilight holds her own sister Trista hostage for Issac's wand, which is one of the Mac Guffins. 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.
- 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 — 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.
- 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.
Webcomics
- Made fun of in this◊ Nedroid comic.
- Set up by Daimyo Kubota in Order Of The Stick #590, with much Lampshade Hanging on both sides.
- David Hopkins' Jack, in the Suffer arc: Artie Sullivan discovers his boss, Doctor Thalmus, is molesting the children in his care. Artie threatens to turn him in ... then Thalmus points out that he is in fact currently working on the cure for the cancer which is currently killing Artie's wife. Worse, Thalmus threatens to turn himself in if Artie threatens him again, on the grounds that he'd get a lighter sentence;
"You, on the other hand ... I'll tell them you were in on it. It won't stick, but it will keep you from your work and your wife for a good long time. She'll die wondering whether you were a part of it."
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.
Other
- 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.)
- In Magic, a similar card called "Fact or Fiction" exists, but it's something of an inversion: your opponent arranges five cards into two piles, and you pick one of the piles. There's almost no way this won't come out a huge lead for you. There's a series of related cards that set up similar situations, but "Fact or Fiction" is the best known for being by far the most powerful.
- This troper begs to differ. Fact or Fiction grabs the top five cards from your deck. For the same mana cost, Gifts Ungiven lets you get any four, no matter how deep in your deck they are. Then your opponent has to pick two to go into your hand, and two to go into your graveyard. Indeed, 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.
- Magic also has Choice of Damnations, which makes your opponent pick a number, and they then must either sac all but that number of cards in play or lose that much life, which I think is a bit closer to the trope. There are also other examples, but This Troper doesn't care enough to post anymore.
- 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.
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