You Said You Would Let Them Go - Television Tropes & Idioms

Darth Vader: Calrissian. Take the princess and the Wookiee to my ship.

Lando Calrissian: You said they'd be left at the city under my supervision.

Darth Vader: I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.

— Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Standard response to a bad guy going back on a promise that he had no intention of keeping.

The use of this phrase comes in three tasty flavors:

Sometimes uttered by The Mole or a member of Les Collaborateurs upon discovering the Big Bad's true, diabolical intentions for the captured heroes, Doomed Hometown, Innocent Bystanders, or other recipients of impending canine soccer or even worse. Usually, the speaker cut a deal with the villain to get the intended victims off easy, or simply hadn't seen the full extent of the evil scheme. This is also likely to come from The Mole who has found himself sympathizing with the protagonists he's betraying. This is a clue that the Turn Coat might not be all bad, even though they've just sold the good guys out, or that they just discovered how Eviler Than Thou their new boss really is. It's often Foreshadowing a Heel Face Turn on the part of the traitor, though they are likely to receive Redemption Equals Death as reward for their last-minute repentance.
Also frequently spoken by a captive good guy who has been convinced by the villain to give him the location of the Rebel base, Secret Identity or Achilles Heel of the hero, or other plot-driving information in exchange for the safety or freedom of something or someone the captive cares deeply about. More rarely, spoken as "You said you'd let me go!" by a Dirty Coward ally of the heroes captured by the villain and tricked into squealing on them with a promise of mercy.
More rarely still, the "You said you'd let me go!" variation is spoken when a Mook or other underling is captured and threatened by a particularly unscrupulous or vengeful Anti Hero and squeals on the bad guys in exchange for his life. This line is never uttered if the hero is actually intending to show mercy and let the badnik go. Simply hearing it said indicates the captive is about to discover just how much Darker And Edgier their captor really is.

In all of the above cases, the villain's response is always the same: "I Lied."

Somehow, the speaker is always surprised by this.

Variants include "You said you were just going to scare him!" and "You said you'd only hurt them a little!", among others.

Another variant is "You promised me mercy" / "And you shall have it" (shoots victim in head). By the standards of those who practice this variant, that is mercy.

When the villain follows through with the exact wording of this agreement, it's Unhand Them Villain. This is one case when the bad guy is exempt from Villains Never Lie - revelations may be true. Promises may not.

Examples:

Both versions crop up in Star Wars
- In A New Hope, Leia gives the (false) location of the Rebel base to Grand Moff Tarkin; Alderaan is not spared.
  Tarkin: You see, Lord Vader, she can be reasonable.
  (to his men)
  Tarkin: Continue with the operation. You may fire when ready.
  Leia: WHAT?!
  Tarkin: You're far too trusting. Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration, but don't worry — we'll deal with your rebel friends soon enough!
  - Of course, Tarkin gets paid back in his own coin later on, when it turns out Leia gave him false information.
  - Not to mention of course, that the Death Star blows up with him on it. His own coin, indeed.
- In The Empire Strikes Back, Lando is a textbook example of the former type, betraying his friends to the Empire but getting screwed over when Vader "alters the deal." Lando - who only agreed to betray them because doing otherwise would mean his city's destruction - does a Heel Face Turn, and surprisingly isn't subject to Redemption Equals Death.
  - In fact, he later becomes a Rebel general, one of the two people who actually destroy the Death Star II.
  - Apparently the original plan was that Lando would fall victim to Redemption Equals Death. Early scripts of Return of the Jedi had Lando failing to escape from the Death Star II after blowing up its reactor core.
From Batman Returns, after The Penguin has just sent the Ice Princess off the edge of a building to her death by means of a swarm of bats and framed Batman for it:
Catwoman: "You said you were just going to scare the Ice Princess."
Penguin: "She looked pretty scared to me!"
From the Batman Beyond episode "Ascension":
Batman: "Enough. Turn it off. That thing's gonna kill him."
Paxton Powers: "You want this as much as I do."
Batman: "No. I wouldn't have agreed to this. You said you were gonna help him."
Paxton Powers: "I lied."
From Commando:
Matrix: "Remember when I said I'd kill you last, Sully?"
Sully: "That's right, Matrix! You did!!"
Matrix: "I lied." *lets go of Sully, while he's dangling him over the edge of a cliff*
- The irony is that in the next scene, when The Chick asks Ah-Nuld just what he did with the prisoner, Ah-nuld answers with perfect truth disguised as a Bond One Liner: "I let him go."
This isn't strictly an example of this trope, but anyway, in the extended version of the movie The Return of the King where Frodo & Sam are climbing up the slopes of Mount Doom and are attacked by Gollum:
Frodo: "Smeagol promised!" [not to hurt Frodo]
Gollum: (grins evilly) "Smeagol lied." (makes a swipe at the ring around Frodo's neck)
- Frodo knew very well that Gollum could not be trusted, but had counted on his other personality Smeagol being honest. Frodo was mistaken.
Danny Phantom, "Reality Trip": Freakshow takes the Three Amigos' families hostage to blackmail them into bringing him three powerful Mineral Mac Guffins. Not only does Freakshow seize them before Danny has a chance to use them to doublecross him, but he doublecrosses them.
Danny: We had a deal!
Freakshow: The deal was, "if you want to see your parents alive again." Well, here they are, alive... for now!
Robocop 2. Cain orders that a corrupt cop who betrayed him be killed by torture. His henchwoman Angie objects.
Angie: You said you were just gonna scare him!
Cain: Doesn't he look scared?
The exact "You said you'd let them go!" "I lied" exchange appears between Ridley and Damodar in the first Dungeons And Dragons movie. Considering what kind of movie this is, Ridley is the only person surprised.
The Star Trek:Deep Space 9 novel The Big Game contains a rare example of the the good guy, Sisko, breaking a promise to one of the villains: to spare him arrest and let him finish the big poker game in exchange for information about the other villains. After he gives it, Sisko orders him arrested anyway. Though since the villain is a poker player, to his indignant "You said I could keep playing," Sisko gets to respond, "I was bluffing." And he was ready to bluff the other villains by the end, too.
How on Earth did Dune not get mentioned in all this? Yueh's conversation with Baron Harkonnen is basically this with a nice brutal twist at the end. Oh and Yueh still manages to get revenge, in a very, very roundabout way.
- Mainly because it is clear that Yueh knew all along what the Baron had done.
- Dune is pretty much the only space opera in which everyone, everyone is clever and competent. The characters who are cleverer and more competent than the others are superhuman.
  - Oh come on. The original book actually has an appendix devoted to explaining how the Bene Gesserit were too stupid to live.
  - Yes, but they were very clever about it.
In One Piece, as the Straw Hats came to rescue Nico Robin in Enies Lobby, Smug Snake Spandam gloats that Luffy charged headfirst into the island and the 10,000-strong forces of the island and those forces have captured or killed him by now. The following lines ensue.
Robin: Wait... this isn't what you promised!! My terms for cooperating with you were that you let them escape safely!!!
Spandam: What's all this fuss for? Lucci, state the precise terms of the agreement.
Lucci: "For the six members of the Straw Hat Crew, excluding Nico Robin, to leave Water Seven unharmed."
Spandam: Yes... that's right. They left Water Seven perfectly unmolested... And came here, didn't they?!
- You don't have to go further than a few chapters to meet Arlong, who don't even try to justify his lies. Again, the victim is a woman.
In A Song Of Ice And Fire, Magnificent Bastard Petyr Baelish, after apparently having tried to cheat on his wife Lysa with Sansa, promises he will never leave Lysa for as long as she lives. Then he immediately kills her.
- Immediately after that Merrett Frey runs afoul of a variation this trope:
Merrett Frey: (who is about to be hanged) NO, DON'T, I gave you your answer, you said you would let me go!
Tom: Seems to me that what I said was I'd tell them to let you go ... Lem, let him go.
Lem: Go bugger yourself.
Half Life 2: Dr. Mossman says that to Dr. Breen after the Resistance leader's capture. She ends up doing a Heel Face Turn in the end, after the hero's Violation Of Common Sense.
Played completely straight in the He Man Live-Action movie starring Dolph Lundgren. Granted, He-Man's friends followed them back to the Castle, but had Skeletor made some pretext of "Hey, I'm trying to follow my part of the bargain", it seems He-Man would have let himself be tortured to death and let Skeletor become a god.
The Mask: "You told me you wouldn't hurt him!" followed by the obligatory smug "I lied".
- In a previous draft of the screenplay, the collaborator is then thrown into an active printing press for her troubles. Though that scene didn't make it into the final release, we never see or hear from Peggy again.
- In context it's obvious that they will hurt him, and that she's cooperating merely for personal gain, making the line in question much more macabre.
- She may have thought they were just going to steal the mask from him, which wouldn't necessarily have hurt him.
Played with in the first Golden Sun game, where the party trades the plot coupon for a hostage, only to be tricked by crafty wording. (To be fair, the villain only said he wouldn't hurt the hostage, her release was never mentioned.)
- This actually happens twice in Golden Sun I, implying that Isaac really should have known better. And yet, despite managing to outsmart Isaac & co. twice using Literal Genie ploys, Saturos & Menardi get referred to as dumb muscle in Golden Sun II.
Inverted in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock:
Maltz: Wait. You said you would kill me.
Kirk: I Lied.
Subverted in Pirates Of The Caribbean. Will makes a deal with Barbossa in that Elizabeth goes free. When Will calls him out for dumping her on a desert island, rather than state that he lied, Barbossa points out a loophole: Will never said ''when'' or ''where'' Elizabeth would go free.
- Re-imagined in Kingdom Hearts 2. Will orders Barbossa to, among other things, "leave". Barbossa and his men comply and leave the ship, but "The Heartless stay."
The Patriot has a particularly Bad Ass rendition of the "You said you'd let me go" variation, when a man gives up the location of the militia to Colonel Tavington, right before he has the man and everyone else in his town is locked in a church and burned to death.
Mr. Hardwick: But... You said we'd be forgiven!
Col. Tavington: And indeed you may! ...But that's between you and God.
From Usagi Yojimbo:
-You promised you would release Usagi if I turned myself over to you, Noriko!
-Don't be an idiot.
Used a couple times in The Silmarillion: After seeing that his wife is held captive, Gorlim agrees to betray Barahir if Sauron reunites them and sets his wife free. Unfortunately, the wife was just an illusion - she was really dead - but Sauron still "reunites" them by killing Gorlim. Later, Mim the Petty-Dwarf agrees to betray Túrin's location to the Orcs if they let Túrin go; they still take Túrin captive. Similar offers are made fairly frequently in The Silmarillion and The Lord Of The Rings, but most of the other times either the offer is refused ( Gandalf & co. when Frodo is captured, Hurin when he's captured) or the character is killed some other way. In general, if an evil (demi-)god makes this kind of offer, don't listen to him.
Terminator 3 has the titular robot becoming able to lie:
Terminator: Where's John Connor?
Kate Brewster: If I tell you, do you promise to let me go?
Terminator: Yes.
Kate Brewster: He's, he's in the kennel. In a cage.
[the Terminator goes to close the trunk]
Kate Brewster: Hey. You said you'd let me go.
Terminator: I Lied.
In Chrono Crusade, Azmaria promises to go with a demon as long as Chrono and Rosette aren't hurt. Of course, he happily takes her—then sends a blast of energy towards them in an attempt to kill them anyway. Azmaria's horrified response is, of course, "No, YOU PROMISED!"
Inverted in Adam Hall's Quiller novel The Sinkiang Executive where it's the supposed 'good guy' who didn't keep his side of the bargain.
"You failed to keep this 'deal' of yours," Parkis said.
"So did they."
"Did you ever imagine they'd keep to it?"
"I think they would have."
"If you had. So the blame was yours."
"Indirectly. But I didn't kill her. They did."
In The Outlaw Josey Wales:
Fletcher: Damn you, Senator. You promised me those men would be decently treated!
Senator Lane: They were decently treated. They were decently fed and then they were decently shot. Those men are common outlaws, nothing more.
Happens in Judge Dredd, when a man helps the other three Dark Judges (y'know, the ones dedicated to extinguishing all life?) free Judge Death on the condition they don't kill his wife. Naturally, "WE LIED!"
The "killing a prisoner Mook" version occurs with War-Prince Alloran in The Andalite Chronicles, complete with the line "you said you would let me go" and Alloran's retort that throwing the Mook out of the ship is "letting him go."
Batman Forever:
Security Guard: But you said you'd let me live!
Two-Face: Too true! And so you shall: nothing like live bait to trap a bat.
The Discworld novel Interesting Times has Lord Hong's mole, having failed to set up La Resistance to take the fall for his own assassination of the Emperor, remind Lord Hong that he promised he would never speak or write any order to harm him. He gets around this by making a little origami figure of a headless man.
In one Carl Barks comic, Magica De Spell turns Donald and his nephews into animals (well... non-anthropomorphic animals...) and says that she'll only turn them back if Scrooge gives her his dime. Naturally, she doesn't.
In Guild Wars Eye of the North, the vanguard soldier Anton reveals that he provided information to the Charr in exchange for his village's safety (it went exactly the way you'd expect, with the bonus of his being caught and imprisoned for it). His quest line involves seeking out and eventually killing the Charr he made the deal with.
- Who, upon being defeated, attempts to strike another deal to save his skin. It doesn't work.
An episode of Sonic Underground had Knuckles helping Dr. Robotnik to capture the hedgehogs, on the condition that he not robotisize them afterward. He's rather outraged when Robotnik goes back on his word.
[[Batman Joker]] does this constantly. Then again who would really trust the Joker in the first place?