History Main / BondVillainStupidity

* In ''Machinima/ClearSkies 3'', [[spoiler:Ghost wastes time monologuing, which gives Charlie and Sol time to salvage a shell and use it to kill him]].
* Felix of ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' is exceptionally prone to this. A born sadist, if there's a way to twist the knife a little further, he'll do it. Naturally, this backfires on him several times; When he brags to the Reds and Blues on how he and Locus are manipulating the civil war on Chorus, this gives Agent Carolina time to come to the rescue. When he does it again to Tucker, he ends up falling into an EngineeredPublicConfession.

* ''ComicBook/SuicideSquad'': The first issue of the 2008 series sees the team encounter a monstrous artificial metahuman called Eve. The scientist behind her creation informs the Squad that Eve has unfortunately never seen a James Bond movie, and when Major Disaster asks what that's supposed to mean, Cluemaster says it means she's not going to waste time talking. The next thing anyone knows, Clock King is gunned down by Eve's guards, and the rest of the team is forced to flee.

* Name ''any'' villain that Franchise/{{Batman}} has fought at least twice, and it's a sure bet that he or she has done something like this. The [[SanityHasAdvantages fact that his enemies tend to be insane]] is one of the biggest reasons he's survived so long. This gets deconstructed with ComicBook/TheRiddler, who knows full well that leaving clues at his crime scenes and leaving a difficult-but-possible escape method in his deathtraps is just going to land him back in Arkham Asylum. By his own admission, he quite literally cannot help himself.

* ''Comicbook/TheUmbrellaAcademy'' StoryArc ''The Apocalypse Suite'' [[spoiler:averts this, as the WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds White Violin gets shot by her brother before she causes TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt]]. Equally, it ''doesn't'' avert it earlier when [[spoiler:Kraken (one of the White Violin's other brothers) fails, for some reason, to destroy her violin or bow when he had the chance]].
* Justified in the classic Disney comic story ''ComicBook/{{Mickey Mouse|ComicUniverse}} Outwits the Phantom Blot''. In the story, the villainous Blot puts Mickey in death traps time and time again, but Mickey always escapes. It turns out that The Blot does this because, despite being evil, he can't stand to actually see anyone get hurt, let alone die. So he constructs elaborate traps to kill Mickey for him, then always leaves because he can't bear to watch.

* Averted in the first issue of the 1988 miniseries ''Comicbook/BlackOrchid''; [[spoiler:the villain has the heroine at his mercy, and instead of sticking her in a deathtrap, he just shoots her. And then, having established that she's immune to bullets, he kills her with fire, and makes sure she's dead. The miniseries turns out to be about the heroine's sister dealing with the consequences of her death]].
* The Yellow Bastard in ''Comicbook/SinCity'' was fine leaving Hartigan hanging by his neck and didn't stick around long to make sure he couldn't escape, which he did. To his credit, people typically die when they are hanged. Hanged people mostly die from breaking their necks. If one survives the fall, failing to suffocate is not common but very much possible. So it's more like a case of generic stupidity owing to lack of research on the subject than the Bond Villain kind.

** One of the biggest examples of this trope in Creator/MarvelComics was done by the Frightful Four. Well, three of them; the Wizard, Trapster, and Sandman were, as usual, in need of a fourth member, something they never seemed able to hang onto. They managed to invade the Baxter Building, ambush the team and take the heroes hostage. So what do they do now that they have their foes at their mercy? Dispose of them? Engage in sadistic torture? Maybe hack into Reed's files? Nope. They use the Baxter Building to hold auditions for a fourth member, and force the heroes to watch. Unfortunately for them, most of the folks who showed up were {{Harmless Villain}}s and a few folks who were trying to decide between this and something more legit including Texas Twister (who rejected their offer because ComicBook/{{SHIELD}} had offered better), and [[FunPersonified Captain Ultra]] (making his first appearance here, likely what made the issue stand out most) but it ''really'' turned bad for the villains when Tigra - who was friends with the FF - showed up and saw the situation. She got them out, and when the Wizard announced over the intercom to everyone waiting that whoever helped them fight the heroes could join them, they proved smarter than he was - [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere they ran for the exit.]] (One villain, the Brute remained, and he ended up the fourth member, but like all other fourth members of the Frightful Four, he didn't last long.)

* [[ItWasHisSled Famously defied]] by [[spoiler:Ozymandias]] in ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', who avoids giving the details of his EvilPlan.

* This trope is explicitly acknowledged in the first issue of the 2001 ''Comicbook/SuicideSquad'' series, which sees the team encounter a monstrous artificial metahuman called Eve. The scientist behind her creation informs the Squad that Eve has unfortunately never seen a James Bond movie, and when Major Disaster asks what that's supposed to mean, Cluemaster says it means she's not going to waste time talking. The next thing anyone knows, Clock King is gunned down by Eve's guards, and the rest of the team is forced to flee.

* When the Turtles retreat when the De-Harmonic Convergence Converter in ''Theatre/ComingOutOfTheirShells'' hurts them... somehow, Shredder captures April and ties her up right next to the De-Harmonic Convergence Converter's control panel.

Bond Villain Stupidity is a form of ignorance commonly exhibited by villains. It occurs when a villain fails to kill the hero when he has him cornered, incapacitated, or otherwise defenseless, thus giving the hero a chance to escape and later come back to defeat the villain. This may occur as a result of WithinArmsReach -- where a character appears to be totally helpless in a fight but nevertheless manages to seize some advantage from something within arm's reach. Essentially, this is where having too much ambition backfires; they lose sight of the matter at hand [[SkewedPriorities and turn their attention on all the wrong things.]] It is so named because it occurs frequently in ''Film/JamesBond'' movies. A common form of Bond Villain Stupidity is to place the hero in an elaborate DeathTrap from which he can escape (slow dipping mechanisms over [[SharkPool pits of sharks, alligators]], [[AcidPool acid]], [[LavaPit lava]] or [[DrowningPit simply water]] are perennial favorites). If you ever asked [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim why the villains don't just shoot him]], ''then'' use their pets/lava to dispose of the body, congratulations! You are smarter than the average megalomaniac. Also common is the inability to resist a JustBetweenYouAndMe [[NoMrBondIExpectYouToDine moment]] before putting the hero in said death trap. Several variants of this one made the EvilOverlordList.

* In ''Fanfic/TheVow'', Lord Shen has the perfect chance to kill Po and the Furious Five -- who are all placed in cells and restrained by acupuncture restraints -- by just throwing [[KnifeNut his knives]]. However, he instead excuses himself to spring the trap set for the invited nobility and leaves two wolves to kill the heroes. They're promptly rescued by [[NinjaMaid Jade]].

%% Please see thread to discuss a new image.

[[quoteright:350:[[Franchise/{{Batman}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/azemwrj_460s.jpeg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:You didn't need the whole DeathTrap for that, [[ComicBook/TheJoker Joker.]] [[note]]Art credit: https://www.instagram.com/p/CZazUn8sdD6/[[/note]]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:You didn't need the whole DeathTrap for that, [[ComicBook/TheJoker Joker.]] [[note]](Art credit: https://www.instagram.com/p/CZazUn8sdD6/[[/note]]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:You didn't need the whole DeathTrap for that, [[ComicBook/TheJoker Joker.]]]]

A SubTrope of WhyDontYouJustShootHim and StupidEvil. For more generalized villainous incompetence, see VillainBall.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* A few ''Series/TwentyFour'' fans weren't too attached to the AffablyEvil Jonas Hodges in season 7, because of this trope. At one point in the season, Jones Hodges manages to frame Jack Bauer for the death of a man he tortured by tasering, but could've just as easily killed Jack Bauer in the process. A bit of context: the incapacitated man was lying in the hospital bed recovering from the aforementioned torture when Jack Bauer sneaked back into the room (Bauer wasn't allowed to see him, but had to [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique interrogate him...again]]). When this happened, Jonas Hodges deployed knockout gas into the room to knock them out for a few brief minutes, which he then sends some men to kill the tortured man, and then leave.
* ''Series/{{Batman|1966}}'': This was the setup for almost every two-episode cliff-hanger; the villain would subject Batman and Robin to some ridiculous death trap (being turned into giant ice cream cones, or giant postage stamps, etc.) and then leave. "Tune in tomorrow, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel."
* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003''. During TheMutiny [[spoiler:Zarek tries to convince Gaeta he needs to kill Commander Adama and stop screwing around with a KangarooCourt, as alive he's a rallying point for the loyalists. Gaeta, being less ruthless, and more interested in making Adam acknowledge what he's put them through with his command decisions, doesn't listen]].
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'':
** [[LampshadeHanging Lampshade hung]] in an episode when Harmony captures Dawn in order to get Buffy to attempt to rescue and then capture Buffy. Harmony's minions point out that they could just kill Dawn because as long as Buffy believes Dawn to be alive then she'll come anyway, instead of waiting until Buffy arrives to kill Dawn. Harmony refuses because, “that's not the plan, duh!”.
** Played slightly straight when the Master, instead of draining Buffy dry, drinks a little blood from her and leaves her to drown in a pond. Though she was clinically dead, she got revived by CPR.
** Angelus' entire plan throughout Season 2 revolves around this; all he wants to do is [[MindRape psychologically torture]] Buffy and the Scoobies as much as possible [[ForTheEvulz for kicks]]. This leads to friction between himself and the more [[PragmaticVillainy pragmatic]] Spike, who repeatedly urges him to just kill Buffy and be done with it before Angelus pushes her too far and makes her ''really'' mad. Spike's concerns are proven right in "Passion" when Angelus kills Jenny Calendar and leaves her body in Giles' bed, sending Giles into a RoaringRampageOfRevenge that leads to their hideout being burned down and Angelus being beaten senseless with a [[FlamingSword flaming]] [[BatterUp baseball bat]]. Of course, even ''that'' doesn't stop Angelus from dicking around and toying with Buffy.
* ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'' would make use of this sometimes as well. The most blatant example was probably "Engaged and Confused" when, after having two of his associates killed as they tried to kill the Charmed Ones, the demon [[TimeStandsStill casually freezes time]] (an ability he did not attempt to use earlier) so that he and his operative can have a conversation (in front of the Charmed ones) without them knowing about it. He then leaves without attempting to harm the Charmed Ones.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E2TheDalekInvasionOfEarth "The Dalek Invasion of Earth"]]: The Daleks restrain two Companions and then leave them to die in an explosion.
** Davros sometimes does this, however he is clearly insane. He also sees the Doctor as an intellectual and seems to enjoy sparring with him. And in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E6RevelationOfTheDaleks "Revelation of the Daleks"]], he implies he wants to turn the Doctor into a Dalek.
** Justified in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani "The Caves of Androzani"]]. Sharaz desires the Doctor's intellectual stimulation as well as Peri's beauty, but makes it clear that he will kill the Doctor if he can't bend him to his will.
** Defied by the Master in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E11Utopia "Utopia"]]:
--->"Anyway. Why don't we stop and have a nice little chat while I tell you all my plans and you can work out a way to stop me, I ''don't'' think!"
*** Although he makes just this mistake [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime later on]] with Rassilon, who has near-omnipotent technology at his disposal. Goodbye Master's masterplan!
*** The Master would often have the opportunity but wouldn't take it. Of course, as he says, "A cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about." And he sometimes tries to pull a WeCanRuleTogether gambit.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E1PartnersInCrime "Partners in Crime"]]: Just before being shot, the Doctor says "Wait wait, now hold on!" and his enemies ''listen to him and hold their fire'', allowing him to use his sonic screwdriver and a sonic pen he'd gotten a hold of to create a sonic wave to disable the bad guys.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E3PlanetOfTheOod "Planet of the Ood"]]:
*** The sadistic overseer Mr. Kess falls into this when the Doctor and Donna's cover is blown. After Donna is capture, Kess specifically orders the armed guards back so he can have the pleasure of chasing the Doctor around a warehouse with a giant claw arm instead of [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim shooting him]]. For bonus points, he says "I've always wanted to do this."
*** Justified later on by Mr. Halpen when the Doctor and Donna end up captured (again). He says that he can't risk shooting them because of the likelihood that the authorities are going to investigate Ood Operations due to what's been happening, so the two are left handcuffed where the Ood will get them, so they'll just look like all of the other deaths by Ood that have happened. However, the Doctor and Donna are able to get the Ood to spare them when they do get attacked by reminding them of the "circle" and that they're friends.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E3RobotOfSherwood "Robot of Sherwood"]]: The Sheriff of Nottingham captures the Doctor, Clara, and Robin Hood, only for them to subsequently escape. Late in the episode, after they uncover his secret spaceship... he puts the Doctor back in irons and dumps him into a different dungeon. This time, he and Maid Marian foment a slave revolt and destroy most of the remaining robots, setting up the Sheriff and Robin Hood's inevitable showdown.
* ''Series/FallingSkies''. In the final S4 episode Tom Mason and Lexi face against the Espheni commander on his ship, the commander knocks down Tom and is more focused in burning Lexi, while his back is turned Tom stabs him with a poisoned syringe that can kill him.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones''
** There's a rare heroic example in ''The Mountain and the Viper'', where Oberyn Martell gains the advantage in his fight with Gregor Clegane and has the opportunity to finish him off, but instead delays while demanding his opponent confess to the rape and murder of Oberyn's sister. Unfortunately for him, he gets a little too close to the downed Gregor and gets pulled off his feet, at which point his foe gleefully delivers the desired confession, while simultaneously crushing Oberyn's head with his bare hands.
** ''The Last of the Starks'' has both a villainous and a heroic example. Daenerys, her last surviving dragon and several subordinates come to the gates of King's Landing to meet with Cersei (standing on the wall above the gate), which ends with Cersei having Missandei executed. During this, Daenerys' group is within range of the countless scorpions (ballistae) on the walls of King's Landing. Cersei could literally just order the scorpions to shoot, thus wiping out the leadership and strongest weapon of her enemies on one go. Sure, it would be dishonorable, but since when did ''Cersei'' care about honor? And on the heroic side, Missandei is standing right next to Cersei and knows she (Missandei) is going to die, so why not grab Cersei and jump off the wall while she's at it?
* Subverted in ''Series/GetSmart'' when KAOS kidnaps Max, plants a Manchurian Candidate-style hypnotic suggestion in him, then allows for him to escape, making it absurdly easy - and he stubbornly resists escaping several times, convinced he's outsmarting some clever attempts to kill him.
* ''Series/{{MacGyver|1985}}'' uses this constantly, usually in the form of the BigBad securing the title hero (and usually a pretty lady) in some form of death trap that always has plenty of "useless" items lying around for [=MacGyver=] to use for escape. Lampshaded in the episode "The Ten Percent Solution", where a Nazi-lady tries to use a gas chamber on the heroes while a henchman ponders, "Why not just shoot them?"
* Patrick Jane from ''Series/TheMentalist'' has been saved by this trope quite a few times. Often involves HoldingTheFloor till [[TheCavalry Lisbon]] arrives.
* Morgana in the BBC series ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'' is guilty of so many examples of this that the only way the series manages to work is to provide the good guys with an equal amount of [[ForgotAboutHisPowers Plot-Induced Stupidity]] to balance her out.
* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'':
** Villains aren't renowned for their intelligence, but were most guilty of Bond Villain stupidity during ''Series/PowerRangersJungleFury'', where a constant stream of new villainous overlords continued to defeat the Power Rangers then walk away, only to complain later about not being able to defeat the Rangers. By about the 20th time this happened in a 32 episode show, it was very hard to keep caring.
** Of course, many fans point out that the Rangers could be accused of "Bond Hero Stupidity" at time. (for instance, during ''Series/PowerRangersZeo'', they could have prevented a ''lot'' of trouble had they opened fire on Klang and Orbus, a duo who were instrumental in [[MakeMyMonsterGrow a key part of Mondo's plans]]. The two were pretty easy targets who were always there, seemed to have very few fighting skills, and as such, a weak link in the overall chain that the heroes never considered trying to break.)
* ''Series/PrettyLittleLiars'' is full of this. A, despite clearly having it in for the all-girl team and having ''more'' than enough fodder to ruin their lives with, [[spoiler: she]] takes [[spoiler: her]] sweet, sadistic time. This gives the girls the leeway they need to try and find out who A really is. Most of the time this winds up getting them to fall into A's traps, giving A even '''more''' fodder, but it does work to their advantage sometimes.
* Happened ''all the time'' on ''Series/RobinHood''. The worst examples were Guy using a half-dead lion to try and kill Robin instead of ordering the fully-armed elite soldiers to just shoot him dead; and later trapping Robin in a dungeon that was slowly filling with water and then...wandering away mid-execution. Robin survives both attempts on his life.
* In the ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' episode "Arrival", two evil Kryptonians confront Clark Kent. They open a portal to the PhantomZone and shove Clark into it. At the last second, Clark grabs a piece of rebar and tries desperately to hold on as the portal sucks him in. Instead of doing something like cutting the bar with their heat vision, the villains just smirk and start walking away, only for Clark to FlashStep up to them, and [[HoistByHisOwnPetard shove them into the portal]].
* In the ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' episode "cold station 12": "Five minutes after we leave, every stasis field in this station will shut down, releasing hundreds of pathogens. I wonder which one will kill you first".
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' had an act of stupidity worthy of a true Bond villain. Commander Sela had captured Spock, Data, and Picard, and was within minutes of conquering Vulcan. Then, she left them alone in her office after describing in detail her entire evil plan. She didn't even bother to tell the guards to stay in the room to watch them.
* The Walking Dead: Negan has many opportunities to kill Rick and deliberately throws them away. Justified at first, in that he wants to break Rick so he has an example for the rest of the communities to stay in line. But later when he decides he's had enough of Rick's disobedience he still wastes time crowing and strutting before killing him. Almost immediately a 600 pound tiger punishes Negan for his arrogance.
[[/folder]]

This is so common that the HypercompetentSidekick [[LampshadeHanging pointing out the inherent flaws]] in this trope and suggesting a more pragmatic solution has become a trope on its own: StatingTheSimpleSolution. For more generalized villainous incompetence, see VillainBall.

Subtrope of WhyDontYouJustShootHim and StupidEvil.

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'':
** DoubleSubversion with Roland Daggett when he had Batgirl and Catwoman at his mercy. When Batgirl taunted him with the suggestion that he leave them trussed up over one of his vats of deadly chemicals with acid burning through the rope, he pointed out how often this method had failed him before, and announced he was just going to [[StatingTheSimpleSolution have his men shoot them and toss their bodies into those vats instead.]] In the end, however, his stopping to tell them this gave them just enough time to get loose and take him down anyway.
** In the episode "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE25TheClockKing The Clock King]]", Fugate, the Clock King, gets Batman in a DeathTrap. But he can't resist pulling a JustBetweenYouAndMe with a mocking taped message left behind that Batman manages to repurpose into the tools with which to escape. Had he left no message at all, it's likely the DeathTrap would have worked, as Batman was ready to try getting out with a cutting torch until Fugate's message informed him that he'd deliberately thought of that already and made sure there wasn't enough time.
** In "[[Recap/TheAdventuresOfBatmanAndRobinE3Trial Trial]]", Batman's enemies have captured and restrained him, but instead of just killing him decide to put him on trial. [[KangarooCourt With]] the Joker as the [[HangingJudge judge]] and [[JokerJury Mad Hatter, Harley, and Croc as the Jury]]. The DA who stated that Batman should be put on trial was his defense, and if she got him acquitted they'd both be set free, if she failed they'd both be killed. But then, [[SanityHasAdvantages what else would you expect from Batman's enemies?]] Two-Face at least ''did'' want to [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim just shoot him]], but lost the coin toss. They do try to kill him after the trial, but by then Batman and the DA manage to escape.
* ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'': Tso Lan the Moon Demon has two examples of this trope in his MonsterOfTheWeek episode. When he has Jackie and Jade at his mercy in the space station, he makes no haste in finishing them off, allowing them to launch a torpedo at him (though this immediately works against Jackie and Jade when it forces him out of the station and gives him a [[FromBadToWorse clear path to the Moon]], which he takes right away, prompting an OhCrap from Jade). Later, he overpowers Jackie just as the Moon is nearly covered by his magic. At the same time, Uncle is chanting the banishing spell, but it won't work due to the symbol of He Xiangu (the lotus pod) being inside Jackie's spacesuit. Tso Lan says out loud that Jackie has to remove his helmet, prompting Jackie to get the pod out by unplugging his air hose for a moment.
* In ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'', this trope is part of the Tradition.
** Discussed in the episode "Rufus in Show".
--->'''Kim Possible:''' Um... Aren't you going to leave now?\\
'''Falsetto Jones:''' Leave? What do you mean?\\
'''Ron Stoppable:''' Well, usually the bad guy says his lame pun and then walks out, you know, leaving us to our doom.\\
'''Falsetto Jones:''' But then I'd miss the whole thing! Where's the fun in that? I'm not going anywhere!\\
'''Kim Possible:''' Okay, but I feel I must warn you, you're really breaking a super-villain tradition here.
** Lampshaded in "Animal Attraction":
--->'''Señor Senior Sr:''' A proper villain always leaves his foe when he's about to expire.\\
'''Señor Senior Jr:''' Why?\\
'''Señor Senior Sr:''' Well, it would be bad form just to loll about, waiting for it.\\
'''Señor Senior Jr:''' Why?\\
'''Señor Senior Sr:''' Tradition!
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfZelda'': Ganon has both played this trope straight and subverted it more than once:
** "Kiss N' Tell": Link (in [[BalefulPolymorph anthropomorphic frog form]]) hits his head on a tree branch while dodging one of Ganon's magic blasts and is knocked out cold. Instead of finishing him off directly, Ganon summons two giant Deeler spiders to do it before taking Zelda to the Underworld without waiting. But when Link wakes up shortly afterwards, his newfound frog instincts unexpectedly take over and he eats them, much to his disgust.
** "Stinging a Stinger": After Ganon captures Link, Zelda, and one-off ConMan Sleezenose (whom the former stole Link's already-stolen sword from), he has them thrown into a large cell to be eaten by Gohma before leaving to conquer Hyrule. He didn't count on them being able to incapacitate Gohma and break out of the cell with Sleezenose's lockpicks.
** Subverted in "Cold Spells" when Link and Zelda fall into Ganon's giant zap-proof holding jar after a shortcut. Ganon summons Gohma to eat them and sticks around to watch, but Link and Zelda manage to get out anyway with Spryte's help.
** He attempts to subvert this again in "That Sinking Feeling" by magically tying Link up in chains and immediately preparing to blast him. Lucky for Link, Zelda blasted Ganon with magic before he could do it.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Wakfu}}'':
** Rushu. Wanting to play games with the heroes gives them a chance to escape, [[spoiler:although Remington and Grany don't quite make it]].
** EvilAllAlong antagonist [[spoiler:Qilby]] has quite a bit of WhyDontYouJustShootHim tendency, but the prize winner is when he has Yugo at his mercy in the [[BlankWhiteVoid White Dimension]] and can easily leave him trapped there while he moves on to Emrub, but instead he offers to take Yugo with him to Emrub to meet his people and then trap him back in the White Dimension afterwards. Doing this only lowered [[spoiler:Qilby]]'s chances of convincing the Eliatropes to join him, to say nothing of how Yugo ''is'' the Eliatropes' rightful king.
* Possibly the biggest case of NearVillainVictory in ''WesternAnimation/HeManAndTheMastersOfTheUniverse2002'' was the three-part "Council of Evil" episode. Skeletor's plan had worked almost perfectly, had most of the heroes at his mercy and bringing Eternia to its DarkestHour to date. But his overconfidence and ego did him in. He specifically said that the reason he wasn't killing them right away was so they could ''witness'' his true victory, seizing Grayskull and the Elders' power. Not only did this mistake cost him, it served as a serious "wake up call" to the heroes, and paved the way for the plot of second [[ExecutiveMeddling (and unfortunately, last)]] season.
* Played straight in ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius''. In the ''Film/JamesBond'' parody "Operation: Rescue Jet Fusion", Jimmy and Jet are left in an elaborate death trap... and manage to escape.
* Shown clearly in ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' when Mr. Crocker meets Norm the Genie. They both hold a deep hatred for Timmy Turner, and Norm suggests sending him to Mars, while Crocker tries out a horde of elaborate impractical traps.
* Aku in ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'', has acted in a StupidEvil manner a lot, so it stands to reason that his stupidest involves this trope, which [[spoiler:comes in the GrandFinale. He has Jack at his mercy and seems ready to kill him [[PublicExecution before the entire world via broadcast...]] only to waste time deciding what weapon to use. Jack's sword, the single instrument capable of killing Aku, is also still sitting in plain sight instead of being taken away or destroyed, meaning that even if Jack was killed, someone could still take it and finish the job for him]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** Subverted in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E2YouOnlyMoveTwice You Only Move Twice]]" where Homer's new employer, a megalomaniac, tries to kill Mr. Bont with such a deathtrap, and Bont escapes, only to be promptly tackled by Homer. Wising up, the guards just shoot him.
** In a DeletedScene from "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS5E10Springfield $pringfield]]", Homer's incompetence at the blackjack table gets James Bond captured by Blofeld. Bond asks Blofeld to at least tell him his EvilPlan but the villain said he wasn't going to fall for that again.
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS14E6TheGreatLouseDetective The Great Louse Detective]]", Sideshow Bob was allowed out of prison [[ConsultingAConvictedKiller to help the police to find out who's been trying to kill Homer]]. During a scene, somebody asked him [[StatingTheSimpleSolution why doesn't he simply shoot Bart]]. The topic wasn't discussed again until the [[BrickJoke epilogue]], when Sideshow Bob ''did'' try to follow the advice but found out he grew accustomed to Bart's face.
* In ''WesternAnimation/ThePerilsOfPenelopePitstop'', the Hooded Claw constantly tries to murder the eponymous heroine(ish) so that he inherits her fortune instead of her. The entire episodes are devised of the heroes foiling his extremely elaborate and overly complex homicide attempts. Probably the biggest reason he never succeeded was his [[BigHam enjoyment at explaining every little detail of each plan to Penelope herself]]; it always took at least three minutes, and it would either reveal a flaw in the design to her or give her some time to either free herself or get saved by the Ant Hill Mob. Subverted in several episodes, in which the Hooded Claw admits he enjoys setting up and explaining his death traps so much that he really isn't very interested in whether or not Penelope manages to escape: if she dies, he inherits the fortune, and if she escapes, he gets to set up another death trap, so for him, it's a win-win situation.
* All the time in ''WesternAnimation/InspectorGadget''. The plot of any given episode has the villain du jour trying to put the titular inspector through increasingly elaborate {{death trap}}s [[ComplexityAddiction instead of, ya know, just shooting him]]. This was subverted in an episode once, where they attempt to simply poison him. However Brain, Gadget's dog, has discovered the plan and keeps him from eating ''anything''.
* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'':
** In the episode "[[Recap/TeenTitansS3E2X X]]", [[MadScientist Professor Chang's]] [[{{Mooks}} minions]] actually defeat SuperHero team leader Robin. But, not only do they not kill him, they don't even bother taking him prisoner! Instead, they just pass on a message that Chang has kidnapped the rest of the Teen Titans and will kill them if Robin interferes with Chang's plans. They might as well have been ''daring'' Robin to [[BigDamnHeroes swoop in and save the day at the last minute]]. (Chang [[EvilCannotComprehendGood apparently didn't understand things like loyalty very well]], and didn't think Robin would risk it while he was holding the other Titans hostage, something Starfire angrily called him out on.)
** In one episode, Slade blackmails Robin into being his apprentice by infecting the other Titans with nanomachines that can kill them literally with a push of a button. Robin gets around this by infecting HIMSELF with the nanomachines, thus giving Slade the choice between killing all the Titans thus removing them as a threat but losing Robin as his apprentice, or potentially getting Robin as his apprentice at a later date, but leaving the Titans around to get in the way of his plans. Naturally as per this trope, he does the latter instead of the much more sensible former.
* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d and {{averted|Trope}} in the first season finale of ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex''. When [[BigBad Van Kleiss]] gives the order [[spoiler: for [[TheDragon Biowolf]] to dispose of a [[BroughtDownToNormal depowered]] Rex]]. Rex asks him if he'd rather lock him a cage or tie him to a slab and use a slow moving laser on him, [[spoiler: Biowolf simply says "No", and tosses him out the window of [[AirborneAircraftCarrier the Keep]]]]. Interestingly enough, this is played straight later in the episode by the [[spoiler: {{Big|Good}} [[DesignatedHero "Good"]]]] of all people, who [[spoiler: chooses not to turn his electromagnet defense system high enough to tear the nanites out of Biowolf's body, but simply to immobilize him for a good old fashioned beat down]].
* Played straight in the ''WesternAnimation/SWATKats'' episode "Night of the Dark Kat", where Dark Kat and Hard Drive have managed to capture the eponymous heroes, but instead of summarily executing them, set them on the end of a long ConveyorBeltODoom that leads to a rock crushing machine, a machine which is wired to blow up the warehouse if shut down, leading to predictable consequences. Dark Kat usually proves smarter than that, too. Hard Drive even {{lampshade|Hanging}}s it: "[[StatingTheSimpleSolution I still say you should have let me fry those two!]]"
%%* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d with Dr. Gene Splicer in the ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'' episode "Hare Raising Night".
* Played straight in almost every episode of ''WesternAnimation/TotallySpies'' or its follow-up ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingSpiez''. Instead of actually spying as their occupations imply, it is always the sequence: get tiny bit of info, get captured, [[BigBad villain]] explains evil plot, leaves before making sure they die, escape, foil.
* ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'':
** In the episode "Where there's Smoke", one of the corrupt government agents seems to have the right idea at first, arming himself with a weapon that ''might'' hurt Superman. Unfortunately for him he feels the need to explain how it works and both threaten ''and'' insult the already pissed Man of Steel, painfully finding out -- when the incredibly fast hero crushes his wrist, disarming him -- that he ''really'' should have just fired it when he had the chance.
** In the three-part crossover with ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', "World's Finest", the Joker comes to Gotham with a large chunk of Kryptonite, with a proposition for Luthor to kill Superman for a billion dollars. He manages to lure Superman into his trap, and even destroys his [[KryptoniteProofSuit lead suit]] that shields him from the radiation, but then he leaves Superman alone to die, [[GenreBlindness not realizing that Batman had followed him to Metropolis,]] who then saves Superman by destroying the Kryptonite.
* Maximus was prone to this in ''WesternAnimation/AtomicBetty'', although his excuse for why he didn't stay to watch the heroes drown in his flooding room trap was [[CatsHateWater "you know how I feel about water"]]. (Which indeed was the case in several episodes.)
* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'':
** Played straight in "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueS1E6And7TheEnemyBelow The Enemy Below]]" when [[spoiler:Aquaman's brother, Orm]] leaves ComicBook/{{Aquaman}} and his baby son pinned to a large piece of rock slowly sinking into lava rather than just killing them both outright.
** During "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueS1E8And9InjusticeForAll Injustice For All]]" Luthor and his group of Super Villains capture Batman, but instead of killing him right then they leave him tied up, which he uses to screw with them all and even finds a way to tell the League where they are. [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim Joker even lampshades the fact that they should no doubt kill Batman right away before he gets out,]] even pointing out how he himself has fallen into this trope himself several times and had it backfire. Naturally, it turns out Batman could have gotten out at any time [[NoodleIncident though how he does is never explained.]]
--->'''Joker:''' And they say ''I'm'' crazy.
** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueS2E17And18SecretSociety The Secret Society]]," where the members of the League are kept in stasis after being defeated by Grodd's LegionOfDoom. Clayface, [[GenreSavvy a former actor]], asks why they don't just kill the captive heroes right now, and compares the situation to the mistakes made by the villains in the spy films he used to appear in. Note that Clayface is asking this while staring at ComicBook/MartianManhunter. This is especially unusual because [[spoiler:Clayface and Martian Manhunter are both Shapeshifters and the villains froze the wrong shifter by mistake. This means that Martian Manhunter in this scene is asking why the bad guys don't kill his allies. It could be he already knew this, as Martian Manhunter is also a telepath and probably got the plan from Grodd's thoughts, and is only asking out loud because Clayface isn't a telepath and would ask this]]. This gets Grodd to unwittingly spill his plans to the heroes before the plan is set into motion.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' pulls this with the Slurm Queen during the 'Fry and the Slurm Factory' episode. She has Leela in a vat of goo that will mutate her into another Slurm Queen, Bender on a conveyor belt headed for a metal recycler, and Fry stuck gobbling up a tub full of addictive soda, and then she and her guards leave them to their fates. Fry saves Leela by simply dragging the tub over to where she's being held and releasing her, then she saves Bender from being turned into soda cans. Luckily for the Slurm Queen, they don't end up telling the world where Slurm soda really comes from.
* Used and {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in the ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' episode "Nerdy Dancin'": Dr. Doofenshmirtz leaves Perry the Platypus shackled to a table with a slowly approaching laser beam, claiming, "I saw this in [[{{Film/Goldfinger}} a movie]] once. I didn't catch the ending, 'cause I had other things to do, but [[GenreBlindness it seemed pretty foolproof]]." Perry escapes as soon as Doof leaves, simply by slipping his small hands and feet out of the shackles.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'', Amon has Korra completely at his mercy with about two dozen of his [[EliteMooks chi-blockers]] restraining her and looks like he's about to take her bending away and... doesn't. However, he justifies it and only comes across as even smarter because of it. He needs support for his plan to succeed and this early in the game, taking her bending away would only turn her into a martyr banding everyone not already on his side against him.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
** Discord, the second-season villain, makes this mistake ''twice''. He allows Twilight Sparkle to get her hooves on the Elements of Harmony, since he's corrupted the bearers and rendered them unable to use the Elements, and he leaves Twilight to her own devices in the unraveling Ponyville because he delights in her misery and helplessness. As such, when she regains her confidence, gets her friends back and fighting, and unleashes a devastatingly harmonious rainbow on his face, he's very much taken by surprise.
** In the episode "Read It and Weep", we are introduced to the ''JustForFun/DaringDo'' novels, which are mainly patterned after ''Indiana Jones'' and ''Tomb Raider''. As such, the main villain in the books, [[BigBad Ahuizotl,]] will often put the hero Daring Do into a clichéd DeathTrap. The example we see is of an ancient over-the-top execution machine involving spikes, [[TheWallsAreClosingIn encroaching walls,]] [[DrowningPit rising sand,]] and [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes snakes and spiders.]] While it seems that Ahuizotl's confidence in Daring's demise is well-founded, he makes the classic mistake of leaving her to her doom, which allows her to use her pith helmet and some ImprobableAimingSkills to reverse the trap.
** In the season 4 episode "Daring Don't", Ahuizotl does it again by suspending Daring over a [[SharkPool slowly rising pit of water]] filled with {{piranha|Problem}}s. Given that the episode's premise is that everything in the ''Daring Do'' novels is actually [[RealAfterAll real]] (including Daring's previous escapes), he comes off less of a real threat and more of a villain with [[YoYoPlotPoint terrible amnesia]].
* ''WesternAnimation/BarbieLifeInTheDreamhouse'' has Closet, the AffablyEvil MasterComputer, exhibit this twice. First, he neglects to keep an eye on Barbie, Midge, and Summer while gloating to Ken, allowing the three of them to ditch him through an AirVentPassageway. Later, Closet threatens to fry Barbie and her friends in a giant drier, only to hear the oven's timer go off. In response, he tells the girls not to move, then leaves to check on the crème brulee he's baking. The girls seize the opportunity to remove the Dreamhouse's CPU.
* ''WesternAnimation/GIJoeARealAmericanHero'':
** COBRA does this a lot, but one that stands out as ''especially'' stupid was the ChristmasEpisode. It started out like a good idea; Cobra Commander thought he'd attack the Joes' headquarters on Christmas Eve (worked for UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington, right?) and it actually worked -- he and his men took the whole team of Joes hostage. Then the Commander got a good idea, ''maybe''. He had his men handcuff the prisoners and lock them up in their own meat locker, suspended from the hooks by their cuffs, then decided to take the Joes' vehicles for a joyride and attack a nearby city, maybe get the Joes in trouble. Then, however, Cobra Commander's last attempt at EvilGloating ruins the plan royally. He tells his prisoners he's leaving them a "Christmas present" and ''puts the keys to their handcuffs on a hook by the door'' before he leaves to taunt them, confident they can't possibly reach it. Unbeknownst to him, Shipwreck has already partially freed himself, getting down from the hook (he leaps up and grabs hold of it when they hear the Commander coming) so when the villain leaves again, freeing himself and the other is a simple matter. Even worse, when the villains leave with the Joes' vehicles, they ''leave their own vehicles behind'' (and apparently leave the keys in the ignitions, for that matter). Did the villains think the Joes wouldn't shoot down their own crafts? Wild Bill ''did'' say he felt "like [he] shot his own horse" when he did, but he still did, and so did the others. (So all this botched plan accomplished was to prove that COBRA can't claim that the Joes have better equipment as an excuse for their failures...)
** Ironically, during the five-part "Arise Serpentor Arise", when the villains took Sergeant Slaughter (likely one of the biggest thorns in their side) hostage, Cobra Commander was the smart one, wanting to kill him right away. Unfortunately for him, he had little control of the organization at the time, and Dr. Mindbender wanted to use Slaughter's DNA to supply the fighting expertise of his creation. It turned out ''very'' bad for them, and would be the biggest factor in the experiment creating just another failure of a leader.
* ComicBook/LexLuthor (often regarded as one of the worst offenders) actually subverts this in one ''WesternAnimation/{{Superfriends}}'' episode. He manages to subdue all the heroes except Superman in inescapable deathtraps that actually seem genuinely inescapable. (Even Batman is close to giving up). Then he reveals to his accomplice that this was part of his deal with a group of aliens that live in the sun itself; he gets rid of them, and they turn the sun red, leaving Superman powerless. They do so, and Superman is led to a nasty surprise, and Lex uses his final deathtrap on him. Thing is, Luthor is ''not'' being stupid this time. When the aliens double-cross him -- as he clearly feared they would -- he deactivates ''all'' the death traps with a single button on his vehicle, unleashing the heroes to deal with them. (Unfortunately for Lex, he's not as CrazyPrepared as he'd like; they still find him and haul him to jail after doing so.)
* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse'' is ''filled'' with these:
** [[EvilGenius Dr. Psychobos]] manages to temporarily get Ben in his grasp in "Outbreak" when he comes to steal a piece of the Omnitrix from him, but chooses to let him live and just leaves once he gets said piece (which is replaced by the end of the episode). When called out for it by [[BigBad Malware]], he justifies his decision by saying [[UnderestimatingBadassery Ben isn't the real threat]].
** In "Vilgax Must Croak", Vilgax has Ben at his mercy, unconscious, in human form and defenseless, with everybody around unable to assist. He still decides to just escape his jail and leave Ben alive, even though it would have probably taken him a second at best to kill him.
** In "Frogs of War", the [[AliensAreBastards Inkurseans]] [[TheBadGuyWins manage to conquer Earth]] [[BoringButPractical with pure military might]] and force Ben into surrendering. Yet, rather than executing and putting him out of the picture permanently, they just exile him and send him into space, allowing him to come back later and [[spoiler:[[TheMole infiltrate them to end their invasion from the inside]]]]. Arguably justified in that [[spoiler:[[TheStarscream Attea]] [[BatmanGambit was counting on it]]]], but still, you gotta wonder why Emperor Milleus couldn't be more pragmatic.
** A particularly ridiculous offender with [[KnightTemplar the Rooters]], seeing how [[spoiler:their whole goal focuses around killing Ben to begin with]]. They had [[spoiler:him as their prisoner, in human form and unconscious]] ''right in their first episode'', but Proctor Servantis decides to [[spoiler:let him go]] and stick with his ridiculously convoluted plan (which by the way [[spoiler:[[VillainForgotToLevelGrind was developed to kill Ben]] ''[[VillainForgotToLevelGrind five years ago]]'', [[VillainForgotToLevelGrind and Ben has become much more powerful since then]]]]) on the argument that "he is tougher than he looks".
* What costs Bill his defeat in ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' where Bill, rather than turning him into a tapestry like the other chosen ones, chooses to imprison Stan while he threatens the kids to blackmail Ford into giving him the equation that will break the barrier. To Bill, Ford won't give a damn if his brother gets tortured to death because Ford supposedly blamed Stan for screwing up the Zodiac, so there isn't any reason for him to keep Stanley. This bites him even harder because it's ultimately Stan''ley'' Pines who comes up with the idea to erase himself, along with Bill, once and for all.
* Deconstructed in ''WesternAnimation/WanderOverYonder''. Wander realizes that the reason Lord Dominator keeps succumbing to Bond Villain Stupidity and letting the heroes escape is because [[spoiler: she's suffering from [[LonelyAtTheTop crippling loneliness]] and [[NoSocialSkills an inability to connect with others]]. She desperately seeks companionship [[EvilCannotComprehendGood but doesn't understand how to make it work]], so she goes around bullying and dominating people as a supervillain, desperate to feel a connection. When her victims inevitably flee or fight back, [[ILetYouWin she lets them do so]] because that means she'll get to fight them more later]].
* In the ''WesternAnimation/MegaMan'' cartoon, Dr. Wily and his Robot Masters have several moments where he could easily have destroyed Mega Man and/or his friends, but fails due to opting for an excessively elaborate plan:
** In "20,000 Leaks Under the Sea", after pulling off a clever EvilPlan, he managed to trap our heroes in a fake laboratory building that was in fact an enormous robot which then took them underwater. We later find out that he had a self-destruct for the building that he could've just used right at the start to kill them all before they even realized anything was wrong. Instead, he trapped them in an AgonyBeam while gloating about his plan, eventually leaving them to their fate, enabling them to make their escape. Not only that, but he apparently left some tools behind that Dr. Light was able to use to help them escape.
** In "Showdown at Red Gulch" the Robot Masters had Mega Man completely at their mercy after they knocked him out, but instead of finishing him off, they tied him to a horse and sent him off into the desert.
** In "Campus Commandos" the Robot Masters had Mega Man at their mercy, twice. The first time they locked him in a closet and the second time they tied him to gears in a clock and left him alone.
** In "Brain Bot" they handcuffed Mega Man to the floor and were going to crush him, but left him alone instead of staying to make sure he died.
* This is a signature trait of Black Heron in ''WesternAnimation/{{DuckTales|2017}}'', largely due to her borderline parodical status as a CardCarryingVillain:
** In the past, she was too focused on filming her "declaration of ill-intent" to take a young Beakley and Scrooge seriously, and she later is almost tricked into giving an evil monologue (but manages to catch herself).
** It's not really her fault that she leaked Bradford's true allegiance to the triplets since Bradford did not enact radio silence, and she was just doing her job trying to find him for extraction. Flying a helicopter with their organization's logo on the side clear and visible so that Scrooge himself can see? Absolutely. What's worse is that when Bradford expressed indignation at the screw-up, Heron sarcastically asked if he would've preferred she fly in an unmarked helicopter. Bradford, naturally, retorts with a big fat "YES!"
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLifeAsATeenageRobot'': Smytus's FatalFlaw is his obsession with EvilGloating and [[ComplexityAddiction grand theatrical schemes]], such as constantly putting time-wasting countdowns on his weapons for the sake of his ego. [[CharacterDevelopment He more or less grows out of it]] of it by the time of BigDamnMovie and [[NotSoHarmlessVillain nearly takes over the Earth as a result]], [[spoiler:only to be undone by one last bit of Bond-Villain Stupidity when he tries to use his SelfDestructMechanism to kill Jenny... [[HoistByHisOwnPetard only for her to safely hurl him far away from her because his self-destruct had yet another pointless time delay]].]]
* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsCloneWars'': General Grievous has the heroes cornered, so naturally, being the CombatPragmatist he is ([[CharacterizationMarchesOn in this series, at least]]), he kills them, right? Nope. He instead launches into a dramatic speech about the futility of their persistence against him, which Shaak Ti ignores and [[CapeSnag ties his cape to a nearby train]] with the Force. Grievous is swiftly pulled away from the scene and has to expend extra effort trying to catch up.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Pro Wrestling]]
* [[Wrestling/KevinNash Diesel]] Vs. Wrestling/TheUndertaker at ''Wrestling/WrestleMania XII''. Near the end -- Diesel chose not to quickly pin 'Taker post-[[FinishingMove Jackknife]], but instead do some long and shit-eating EvilGloating... at the guy known for [[PivotalWakeup Pivotal Wake-ups]]. Worse? When 'Taker did just that, and Diesel managed to Jackknife him again -- Diesel '''''repeated''''' said Gloating. Unsurprisingly, 'Taker recovered again -- wasting no time to make Diesel pay.

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie'': Gruntilda does this in spades. After kidnapping Tooty, by the time Banjo & Kazooie enter her lair, she's already placed Tooty in the beauty-swap machine and already has it prepared to activate. Despite this, she decides to wait until the duo are defeated before going through with it. Even worse is that she blatantly has Banjo & Kazooie progressing on a lava pit and with a one-ton anvil dangling on top of them, where she could've finished them with ease, if she wasn't more focused on running her PopQuiz.
* Gloriously averted in ''VideoGame/GrimFandango''.
-->'''Manny:''' [[ThisIsThePartWhere Is this where you tell me all about your secret plan, Hector?]] How you stole Double N tickets from innocent souls, pretended to sell them but secretly hoarded them all to yourself in a desperate attempt to get out of the Land of the Dead?\\
'''Hector:''' No.\\
[[spoiler:'''''(BLAM!)'''''\\
'''Hector:''' This is where you writhe around in excruciating pain for about an hour because that ''idiot'' Bowsley ran off with the fast-acting sproutella. That slow stuff ''will'' sprout you, but it's going to take a ''long'' time, I'm sorry to say.]]
* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
** Sephiroth of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' has this badly. He could, at any given moment in the original game, completely obliterate the party with ease. However, he instead prefers to mock and taunt the heroes, stringing them along with plans to manipulate them later. As is expected with the trope, this came to haunt him later -- when Sephiroth kills Aeris, she's already managed to summon Holy, which ultimately stops Meteor's impact. Had Sephiroth just killed Aeris when he had the chance, Holy wouldn't have been summoned, instead he waited for Cloud to catch up to her so he could kill Aeris in front of his eyes to torment him. Justified to some degree in that Seph wasn't intending to kill Cloud and (most of) his group, it was all part of his [[MacguffinDeliveryService plan to get him to deliver the Black Materia]] to [[spoiler: his real body in the Northern Crater, which he then used to summon Meteor]].
** Beatrix from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' is the namesake of the rule quoted above. You will encounter her ''three'' times within the span of barely more than half a disc, and each time, [[HopelessBossFight she will always Stock Break your entire party at 1 HP]], before laughing at your weakness and taking her leave. (She's later revealed to be a PunchClockVillain, however.) Subverted though in that she is entirely right about your party being completely unable to stop her or the Alexandrians.
** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'', the three party members who can breathe underwater indefinitely are sentenced to death by drowning in a long but open-ended underwater canal. The other party members have to walk through a monster-infested maze instead. The [[JustifiedTrope reason]] they were placed there at all and not just [[MundaneSolution executed]] is because of religious tradition. It's called "The Path of Repentance" for a reason. [[spoiler:Also, the bad guys break every Bond villain tradition in the book when they actually realize that this was a bad idea and place guards at the exit.]]
* ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'': Dalton, upon first meeting your party: "Hm? Those clothes… You must be the ones the prophet said would come to interfere! I think I shall watch for the time being, and see how he plays his hand. Not that I suspect he'll tip his cards so easily. Ha!" This was a mistake and it was bad for everyone, considering what he does between games…
* ''VideoGame/HalfLife'':
** In ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'', a pair of {{mooks}} capture the player character and, rather than [[MundaneSolution just shooting him]], toss him in a trash compactor; they were under orders to bring him to their commander, but wanted to kill him for killing their comrades, and did it so that his body would be disposed of. Which he then escapes via conveniently stacked-up garbage. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXjk2jKd_xo&list=PLDmcwfn8y0lMtlqcpUhggk0FB1EC2i3iB&index=32 Originally]], a mission in the expansion pack ''Half-Life: Decay'' was supposed to explain this: the soldiers wanted to shoot him in the head and ''then'' throw his body in the garbage, but the Gina and Colette (the player characters in ''Decay'') intervened, killing the soldiers but not being able to stop Gordon from dropping in the compactor. However, the mission was cut from the final release.
** In ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'', near the end [[spoiler: the main character [[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption willingly climbs into a transport]] within the alien citadel that immobilizes him. Naturally, its a trap and it carries him helplessly right to the Big Bad, who does not take the opportunity to shoot him. Justified later when the main villain tries to recruit him]].
* Parodied in the computer game ''VideoGame/EvilGenius''. The most formidable members of the Forces of Justice, called Super Agents and based on action movie protagonist archetypes who'd usually be put into such traps, cannot be killed by normal means. When they run out of health, they simply fall unconscious for a few minutes. They can only be defeated by exploiting a [[AchillesHeel specific weakness]]. So until you figure out what their particular weakness is, your options are limited to locking them up and torturing them regularly to keep their stats down.
** Funnily enough, the last super agent, a {{Expy}} of Bond, has no weaknesses. The only way to kill him is to end the game with him in custody, where he’ll be blasted off into space with a rocket.
* In the original ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' [[spoiler: this actually is all part of the villains' plans. Because the DARPA chief was "accidentally" killed by Ocelot, the terrorist didn't have the second part of the code to activate Metal Gear, so they needed Snake to progress through his mission and use an alternate means of activating Metal Gear (by making him think they'd already activated it, and that inputting the code would disable it). So locking Snake in a cell patrolled by an inept guard was all part of the plan]].
* And in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'', Colonel Volgin is incredibly prone to this to an almost facepalming degree, which works as the game is an AffectionateParody of James Bond and other Cold War spy fiction. Best shown in the [[SignatureScene now famous]] Groznjy Grad torture scene where he ends up not only giving his interrogatee a ton of information about his motives that he didn't know, but unwittingly revealing this information to three other people who are all secretly plotting against him.
* [[spoiler:Labtech 123]] in ''[[Website/GaiaOnline zOMG]]'' kindly takes the time to explain most of the BigBad's plan to you, as well as how to override the security system, while he waits for reinforcements.
* Played straight for most of the ''VideoGame/MonkeyIsland'' series, with [=LeChuck=] dreaming up more ludicrous ways of dealing with Guybrush. In ''VideoGame/TalesOfMonkeyIsland'', however, [[spoiler:it gets subverted ''twice''. When [=LeChuck=] reveals he was the HeelFaceMole, he kill Guybrush by simply skewering him with a sword. When Guybrush returns in zombie form, [=LeChuck=] goes for a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown to try and kill him. When Guybrush asks why [=LeChuck=] isn't going for his usual overcomplicated plan, [=LeChuck=] informs him he's learned from his mistakes]]. In ''VideoGame/EscapeFromMonkeyIsland''. [=LeChuck=] points out to his villainous cohort that leaving Guybrush alive has always cost him in the past... then they do it anyway. By dumping him on an "inescapable" island that he's escaped from several times.
* In ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry3DantesAwakening'', Mission 13 has [[spoiler: Arkham detailing his plan in manipulating the twins and his daughter into spilling their blood to undo the seal. He undid the final part of the seal by stabbing Lady with her bayonet through the leg, but it was just as easy to stab her somewhere vital and kill her, which would have prevented her from getting up and turning her weapon on him. ... It also would have stopped her from killing him at the end, too]].
* This trope is such an essential element of ''Franchise/TouhouProject'', with horrifically powerful beings fighting the player character with [[BulletHell slow moving, colourful bullets]] instead of wiping her from existence, that ZUN created intricate justifications for as part of the backstory to [[FantasyKitchenSink Gensoukyou]]. Not only would killing Reimu do [[CriticalExistenceFailure Very Bad Things]] to Gensoukyou (though the other main PlayerCharacter Marisa has no such protection), not only were the Spell Card rules implemented specifically to prevent that sort of destructive violence (though we don't know if there are any punishments for breaking them), but its denizens are mostly very old, very bored individuals that view fighting as an [[BloodKnight excellent hobby]], and killing their opponent would prevent future encounters.
* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'' has two examples from two different villains:
** [[StarterVillain Lord Lundgren]]'s entire plan is to kill his brother, the Marquess of Pherae, and take his throne. He opts for the slow, subtle route of poisoning the marquess' food, which seems smart enough - at first. But even after the marquess has survived ''months'' of poisoning, even after seemingly everyone in Pherae - including the marquess himself - has realised what Lundgren is up to, even when the legitimate heir to the throne is at the castle gates, Lundgren sticks with poison instead of just walking up to his helpless, bed-ridden brother and smothering him with a pillow. [[spoiler:The marquess survives. Lundgren does not.]]
** Ephidel very much downplays this when he kills Lord Helman [[YouKnowTooMuch to stop him from talking]]. Instead of finishing Helman off, he just leaves him to die, and Helman survives long enough to warn Eliwood about Darin and the Black Fang. Darin is understandably ''furious'' when he realises this.
* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateII'': Jon Irenicus stands out from the norm by averting this trope; not only does he feel no need to explain his plans to you at any point, he also make good use of sedatives to take you out rather than give you a chance to escape, and he makes sure to have you killed off properly after he no longer need you. Unfortunately (for him, at least) he decided to let his sister Bodhi deal with that. She played the trope straight, and had this interesting maze she wanted to test...
* ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamSeries'':
** In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum'', Joker gets multiple opportunities to cleanly kill a helpless Batman throughout the game, but declines to do so until Batman truly becomes a thorn in his side later in the game. At one point, Joker even goes so far as to demonstrate that he could kill Batman easily by blowing the brakes on the elevator in which he trapped him. He decides it wouldn't be fun.
** [[spoiler: Hugo Strange]] in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity''. Even though he knows you are the goddamned Franchise/{{Batman}}, he [[spoiler: doesn't take the opportunity to kill Bats at the beginning when Bruce was unconscious and shackled. He wakes you up and then dumps you into Arkham City without even bothering to track you. And ''then'' he tasks an assassin to kill you, suggesting that he wanted you dead the entire time. It's ultimately subverted once the real plan comes out. Batman finds the assassin's list, and Hugo tasked the assassin with killing Bruce Wayne first, THEN Batman, KNOWING that Bruce would be incognito as Batman. The whole thing was a ploy, to keep both Batman and Deadshot in Arkham City, so he could take out everyone with his aerial strikes]].
** The AntagonistTitle Character of ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight'' has ''multiple'' chances to kill Batman, even one moment having him point out to his soldiers the weakpoints on his armor. However, Scarecrow [[IWantThemAlive wants him alive so he can break him down mentally and emotionally]]. The Knight even tells him how stupid that plan is.
* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
** Occurs in ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' when the party is trapped in force cages and a bounty hunter sneaks in to kill you. Even though he could overload the cages to kill you all effortlessly, ''which your teammate actually suggests'', he turns the cages off so he can try to defeat two Jedi and one scoundrel in a three-to-one hand-to-hand combat. Although the dialogue and voice-acting ''does'' seem to suggest that this was the bounty hunter's original plan, and Atton's goading bruises the guy's ego enough to change his plans. (Which is still pretty stupid.)
** ''VideoGame/JediKnightIIJediOutcast'': Despite [[CurbStompBattle absolutely brutalizing]] Kyle Katarn in their first duel, Desann leaves him alive for being NotWorthKilling and even goes the extra mile of pointlessly antagonizing Katarn by [[spoiler:pretending to kill his girlfriend Jan]], which naturally prompts Katarn to power himself up at the Valley of the Jedi and go hunting for revenge. [[spoiler:Which was Desann's plan all along. [[SubvertedTrope He's not stupid]], he ''wanted'' Katarn to return to the Valley of the Jedi so he could follow him there and take control of the Valley, intending to use it to not only supercharge his own (already very impressive) Force abilities, but also empower his army into [[SuperSoldier Force-wielding super soldiers]] that can overwhelm the Republic.]]
* ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'':
** This happens in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' when the village chief nearly strangles Leon to death but lets him go when he sees he's been [[spoiler:injected with a [[PuppeteerParasite Plagas]] egg, knowing that he'll eventually succumb to the parasite's control]]. He later admits in a memo that he gravely underestimated Leon's capabilities and that at the rate he's going, he'll probably destroy the whole village before [[spoiler:the Plagas takes over]].
*** Also in Ada Wong's campaign, Ada gets knocked out by a TranquilizerDart. Instead of killing her immediately, the villains put her in a conveniently slow death trap. Naturally, Ada wakes up just in time to escape from it.
** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5'' shows this in Wesker, who apparently toys with Chris rather than kill him outright. Various cutscenes also depict him grandstanding and effortlessly smacking Chris around, but never bothering to, say, pull out a knife and stab him. One boss fight against him even ends with him simply scoffing and strolling out of the room. Though the general long-term goal is for Chris to end up dead at some point, he doesn't seem to care if Chris is surviving at any given moment and mostly just relishes in tormenting him. Up until the fight in the bomber, where he finally cuts the crap and starts putting much a more serious effort into killing Chris. A single mistake from that point on is practically guaranteed to be fatal to the player. Once his plans are in ruin, he ''finally'' realizes he shouldn't have dicked around so much:
--->'''Wesker:''' I should have killed you ''years'' ago... Chris!\\
'''Chris:''' Your mistake! It's over, Wesker!
* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'':
** Mostly averted with the Empire ([[GreyAndGrayMorality though they are not technically "evil"]]). The Imperial Legion captured the rebel leader Ulfric Stormcloak and instead of taking him back to the capital and staging an elaborate trial, they immediately take him and the other captives to the next garrison where they are led to the chopping block right after getting of the cart. But even that turned out to be too much of a delay, as a dragon attacks and the prisoners escape in the chaos after just one of them had been beheaded.
** Said dragon also averts this trope in this specific scene in that he actually is ''Alduin'', the [[OmnicidalManiac World Eater]], and the reason of his attack was that he was looking for the [[PlayerCharacter Dragonborn]] so he could kill him before he unlocked his powers and became a threat- you read right: the game's FinalBoss ''actually comes to try and kill you while you still are level 1'', and you only escape alive because it takes him time to find you among all these puny mortals. He does, however, play this trope straight later in the game, where he will just leave a recently raised dragon deal with you whenever you encounter him before the boss fight.
** Another example would be the various mad scientist-cum-mages who feel the need to have you fight a pet monster of theirs rather than kill you outright. Predictably, it always fails.
** Harkon, the main antagonist of the Dawnguard expansion, makes a terrible mistake in choosing to spare the Dragonborn out of one-off gratitude if the latter refuses his offer to become a Vampire Lord; let's just leave it at that.
* Inverted in ''VideoGame/MaxPayne 3'', where Max has [[spoiler: Becker]] at his mercy and slowly strangles him rather than just give him a 9mm headache. This gives [[spoiler: Victor Branco]] time to show up. Max does it again immediately by holding off on disarming the newcomer until the first villain is recovered enough to stun him, allowing both villains to escape. Somewhat justified in that Max is ''extremely'' angry and a simple kill shot is too good for [[spoiler: Becker]], and he's honestly a little surprised at the appearance of [[spoiler: Victor]], and it takes him some time to process that before he makes his move.
* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'': Charles Lee [[spoiler: refuses to kill you in the New York prison, instead explaining how he'll frame you for their own murder plot of George Washington so you are hanged. Connor escapes. When Connor is captured at Haytham's funeral, Lee again refuses to kill him, claiming he wants to break him first. Connor escapes again, this time forcing Lee to attempt to flee the colonies entirely]].
* ''VideoGame/SaintsRowIV'': The BigBad Zinyak does this to the Boss. Even though the Boss has shown how dangerous he can be to Zinyak's forces, and Zinyak has shown he can easily defeat the Boss in one-to-one combat. He decides that it's better to "break" the boss through a simulation. Considering the Boss's and the other Saint's fierce {{determinat|or}}ion, you can see where this is going. Doesn't stop Zinyak from making the struggle as difficult as possible though.
* ''{{VideoGame/Halo 4}}'': The Ur-Didact, newly released SealedEvilInACan, is a {{Nigh Invulnerab|ility}}le SufficientlyAdvancedAlien with powers of levitation, teleportation, and telekinesis. Does he use these powers to quickly kill Master Chief and then resume his evil plan? Nope. Instead he just renders Chief helpless during his lengthy monologues then tosses him away, giving the Chief another chance to stop the villain. Only at the end of the game does it occur to the Didact to teleport to the Chief and kill him himself, and even then he wastes time by suspending him over a chasm and then ''choking him'' instead of just dropping him immediately. Then he takes his sweet time ''yet again'' even after you've been freed and ''shoved a grenade in his chest''. The guy simply does not learn, does he?
* ''Franchise/FarCry'':
** Vaas from ''VideoGame/FarCry3'' suffers from this trope badly, succumbing to it at least four times while trying to get rid of Jason Brody. First time he gives Jason a thirty-second head-start and Jason escapes. Second time Vaas gets the drop on Jason, but leaves him to die in a burning building and Jason escapes. Third time Vaas jumps Jason again, and ties him to a concrete block and throws him a pool which Jason escapes from. During this capture Vaas lectures Jason on his beliefs about insanity[[note]]''"Insanity is doing the exact same fucking thing over and over again expecting shit to change. That. Is. Crazy."''[[/note]], which may indicate Vaas is aware that what he is doing is just not working but is unable to stop himself. [[spoiler: The fourth time Vaas walks up to Jason after a crash and shoots him in the chest, but buries him in a shallow grave without checking to see if he is really dead, missing the [[PocketProtector lighter that blocked his bullet]]. During the fifth and final confrontation between Jason and Vaas, Vaas gets the drop on Jason '''again''' and stabs him through the chest with a large knife, but ''[[MindScrew something]]'' happens, the knife starts glowing yellow, and their last fight talks place in an alternate dimension filled with television monitors. Jason wins, and when he wakes up Vaas is gone and everyone says he's dead.]]
** In ''Videogame/FarCry5'', upon reaching certain points in the game the player character will end up captured by a member of the Seed siblings. During these points rather than simply execute you they'll just give you {{Motive Rant}}s while you're under their mercy. [[spoiler:This gets averted at the end where everything is taken from the player and they are forcefully brainwashed, and we see the results in the following game.]]
* Generally subverted in the ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' series, where many of the true culprits in the cases committed murder to prevent word of some other crime they committed from getting out. In fact, given how the playable characters inevitably catch the criminals, one could argue that subverting this trope tends to backfire on them. On the other hand, when the playable characters [[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption are forced by the game to do things like be alone with the culprit and show them vital evidence]], the culprit's main concern is to destroy the evidence before trying to silence the characters. Given that the evidence is what's needed to put them behind bars (without evidence, it's all but impossible to do anything to them, let alone have them arrested), this makes sense. Not to mention, at least two of those instances are interrupted by [[BigDamnHeroes the police showing up]].
* ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'': In the Citadel DLC, the Mysterious Figure disposes of you and your squad by locking them in inescapable storage chambers in the Council archives with about an hour's worth of air. Granted, it would have worked if the Figure hadn't forgotten about Glyph, and direct applied violence had failed several times before in that DLC, but it's still not a particularly smart move. [[LampshadeHanging Shepard him/herself notes that a bullet would have been quicker and far more reliable.]] Actually somewhat justified due to the aforementioned failure of direct applied violence - when Shepherd and their squad get locked up, they're trapped by essentially impassible barriers that prevent them from simply being shot, but also keep them from casually mowing down everything in their way as they have done thus far.
* ''VideoGame/TransformersRiseOfTheDarkSpark'': Rather than doing something about the outraged Autobot leader in front of him, Lockdown chose to monologue about the greatness of his evil plan.
* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', Lord Walden in the Shadowfang Keep dungeon uses a spell called Asphyxiate that will reduce the entire party's HP to one, but because he's an arrogant hunter he decides to "make it a bit sporting" by casting a spell called Stay of Execution that heals both him and your group (in normal, it's a burst that heals him a little but heals your party to full, in heroic it's a channeled spell that you interrupt when you think your healer can take it from there).
* Double Subverted in ''VideoGame/Uncharted2AmongThieves'': [[spoiler: Near the end of the game, Lazarevic has Drake and Elena held hostage. Lazarevic's right-hand man Harry Flynn suggests shooting them immediately, but Lazarevic wants to wait until the gates to the lost city of Shambhala are opened just to drive the fact in that he beat Drake. As soon as they're opened, he immediately has his men prepare to open fire on them, looking like waiting didn't really matter and he's actually subverting this trope - only for Shambhala's guardians to start attacking everyone, giving Drake and Elena a chance to escape]].
* ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'':
** [[BigBad Doctor Eggman's]] specialty. Constantly hatching up crazy world domination schemes and brilliant inventions, he tries to kill [[TheHero Sonic]] time and time again to the point that his VillainSong in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'' has him declaring his yearning of victory over the blue hedgehog. And in many cases, he does trap the blue blur or get the perfect opportunity. Except time and time again, his inventions have a glaring weakpoint, his EvilGloating leaves himself wide open for retaliation, there's a significant issue that Sonic can take perfect advantage of, or he flatout spares Sonic in his few moments of victory which [[LaserGuidedKarma bites him in the ass rather quickly every time.]]
** In the [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog28Bit 8-bit version of]] ''[[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog28Bit Sonic the Hedgehog 2]]'','' Eggman actually ''rescues'' Sonic from falling to his death -- in order to try killing him his preferred way, in a [[ShoutOut Sarlacc pit]]. Justified in that, at this point, Sonic was supposed to have one of the Chaos Emeralds on his person, so letting him fall into a pit of lava would ''definitely'' put a bit of a wrinkle in Robotnik's plans. Said Sarlacc pit is also [[ThatOneBoss one of the hardest boss fights in the]] ''[[ThatOneBoss entire franchise]]''.
** In ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'', Eggman ambushes Sonic and Tails as they leave Casinopolis. He sprays them with KnockoutGas instead of deadly poison gas, steals ''one'' of the ''two'' Chaos Emeralds they're carrying, then just leaves them there to wake up instead of finishing them off. ''Arguably'' justified in that he spends most of the game using the heroes as a MacGuffinDeliveryService.
** A glaring case would be the beginning of ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed''. Eggman lures Sonic (in his SuperMode) into a trap, and uses the chaos energy to split the Earth apart in his efforts to unleash [[EldritchAbomination Dark Gaia.]] With Sonic now in [[BalefulPolymorph his werehog form]] and weakened at his feet, Eggman's response is to.. [[ThrownOutTheAirlock drop Sonic out of an airlock]] along with all the depowered Chaos Emeralds. [[NotTheFallThatKillsYou Sonic survives the fall with no issue]] (which Eggman entirely expected but didn't care for), while the Chaos Emeralds that [[AvertedTrope avert]] the infamous BagOfSpilling serve to let Sonic both put the world back together and simultaneously regain his Super form for the FinalBoss. Orbot, one of Eggman's personal robots, [[LampshadeHanging points out this major oversight,]] to which Eggman attempts to [[NotHelpingYourCase (poorly)]] proclaim it was for the sake of a challenge.
** [[spoiler: Zavok of the Deadly Six]] in ''VideoGame/SonicLostWorld''. Instead of [[spoiler: personally supervising the roboticization of Tails, he and Zomom just leave him all alone in the lab. Being TheSmartGuy he is, Tails successfully modifies the machine he's bound to to his own advantage]].
** ''VideoGame/SonicForces'' has two instances:
*** [[spoiler:The villains finally have Sonic in their clutches, but instead of killing him, they instead choose to imprison him aboard the Death Egg for six months, which allows Sonic to eventually break out and stop them. Zavok mentions that Eggman wanted to show Sonic his completed empire before [[ThrownOutTheAirlock jettisoning him out into space]]. (In other words, they wanted to rub Sonic's failure in his face, ''then'' kill him.)]]
*** [[spoiler:Infinite gets a moment of this after his first boss battle. After defeating Sonic, Infinite arrogantly deems him NotWorthKilling and leaves. Eggman later chews him out for doing so, correctly predicting that Sonic will continue to be a threat to their operations as long as he's still alive.]]
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
** Justified in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast''... possibly. The maidens are a major threat to Agahnim's plans, since they are the only ones capable of sealing Ganon or countering his evil magic. This obviously raises the question of why Agahnim only teleports the maidens to the Dark World instead of killing them. The first maiden explains that this is because [[spoiler:they are also the only ones who can ''unseal'' Ganon, so he has to hijack their powers to free himself from the Dark World]]. [[ZigZaggingTrope However]], one of the maidens implies that [[spoiler:Ganon already siphoned all the power he needed from them]], which does raise the question of why he's still keeping them around.
** Zigzagged in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess''. Though Zant was smart enough to take the Fused Shadows from Midna and Link, he merely curses Link to stay as a wolf permanently rather than killing him outright. When he meets them again at Arbiter's Grounds and sees that Link is still alive, he shatters the Mirror of Twilight and scatters its pieces across Hyrule. But he doesn't actively stop them from reclaiming them, however. Before that, he animates Stallord to kill Link, and then promptly leaves without even bothering to make sure that Stallord actually beat him.
** Throughout ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'', Ghirahim constantly screws around and toys with Link in each of their confrontations, which allows Link to repeatedly interfere with his plans. By their final showdown, Ghirahim is well aware of this, and outright [[LampshadeHanging kicks himself for not just killing Link when he had the chance]]:
--->'''Ghirahim:''' If only I'd put you in your place from the very beginning!
** ''VideoGame/HyruleWarriors'': Ganondorf manages to steal the Triforce pieces from the heroes, but does not bother to kill them. This is what allows the Hyrulean forces to strike back.
* Happens repeatedly in the ''Franchise/DragonAge'' series:
** In ''[[VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins Origins]]'' one and possibly both of the last two Grey Wardens are captured by Loghain and represent one of the greatest threats to his plans. Rather than simply having you executed on the spot, he has you thrown in a cell (admittedly in the middle of a fortress) with a single inept guard and all your equipment just a few feet away. If the player character doesn't choose to wait for rescue by their companions, they can escape in about five minutes without much trouble.
** In the ''Mark of the Assassin'' DLC for ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', the player character and [[GuestStarPartyMember Tallis]] get cornered by the villain Duke Prosper and a hefty number of his guards. He gloats a bit, [[spoiler: reveals that Tallis is a Qunari,]] and then has Hawke and Tallis locked up in a cell. Why he didn't just have them killed then and there is a mystery. Perhaps he didn't want to ruin the carpet.
** The GreaterScopeVillain of ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'', [[spoiler:Solas, a.k.a. the Dread Wolf Fen'Harel]], proves to have a case of this in the ''Trespasser'' DLC epilogue, as he ''always'' saves the Inquisitor's life just as the Anchor is about to kill them. While this is justified if the Inquisitor is [[spoiler:[[BigBadFriend best of buds with]] or even in a [[RomanceSidequest romantic relationship]] with him]], there is really no excuse for saving the one person in Thedas capable of stopping him if they are none of those things and outright threaten to kill him if left alive.
* In ''VideoGame/YuGiOhBAM'', Marik lampshades and averts this, freely admitting to his role in hijacking the B-Sec Hologuards... and then he tries to kill you, pointing out that he wouldn't let you just walk away after telling you his secrets.
* In Scorpion's chapter of ''VideoGame/MortalKombatX'', after Shinnok is freed from his amulet, he has several former enemies ''completely'' at his mercy, but while he orders D'Vorah to take Johnny Cage hostage (as he sees him as a potential threat) he just leaves Sonya, Kenshi, and Scorpion behind, letting them live for no discernible reason. This allows Sonya to inform the younger Earthrealm warriors of Shinnok's plan to absorb the Jinsei which leads to his defeat
* In ''VideoGame/RiseOfTheTombRaider'', Lara is captured by Trinity soldiers, who proceed to lock her in an ancient crumbling prison and leave her there without posting any guards. As if that wasn't dumb enough, they also leave her equipment right outside her cell (along with a set of jail keys), which ultimately results in one of the quickest jail cell escapes in video game history.
* When Lara obtains all pieces of the Scion in ''VideoGtame/TombRaider'', she is ambushed by Natla's goons and all her guns are taken. After Natla takes the Scion for herself, she orders her men to kill Lara. Lara quickly breaks free from one of the henchman's grip and they just stare at her as she runs and jumps into a river below the cliffside. It's only ''then'' that one of the mooks bothers to shoot at her. Natla rightfully calls them morons. The remake recitifies this by having the henchmen quickly attempt to kill her, though Lara escapes anyway.
* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel IV'', Giliath Osborne, the EvilChancellor of the ''VideoGame/TrailsSeries'' has the heroes on the ropes at least twice and yet on both occasions, he lets them go. Prior to ''IV'', he's shown to be a pragmatic villain who actually ends up geting what he wants at the end of ''II'' (winning the CivilWar and crushing the Noble Alliance) and ''III'' (have someone kill the corrupted Divine Beast of Earth and spread the curse of Erebonia all over the world) but then he pulls off questionable moves where he just lets go of the heroes. [[spoiler:He is doing this on purpose as his true goal is [[GoodAllAlong to get rid of the curse of Erebonia]] from the face of Zemuria for good.]]
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestV'': Ladja has the opportunity to easily kill the hero twice, and later the hero's wife along with him, the first while he's a child and doesn't know he's a threat yet, and the second when he turns the hero and his wife to stone and knows all too well, but in both cases decides to make a quick buck off the hero instead.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* OlderThanTelevision: In Creator/JohnBuchan's 1919 UsefulNotes/WorldWarI spy thriller ''Literature/MrStandfast'', the villain, having finally captured the hero Richard Hannay, explains his evil plans at great length before placing Hannay in an easily-escapable situation. Buchan was arguably the first writer of modern spy thrillers, and the young Creator/IanFleming was a fan.
* ''Literature/BulldogDrummond'' (1920):
** Toward the end of the novel, Drummond is captured by the BigBadDuumvirate. Peterson points out that he has a talent for getting out of hopeless situations, and is all for killing him on the spot, but Lakington refuses to give him a quick and simple death, and insists on keeping him alive until they have time to subject him to something painful and drawn-out. Which of course gives Drummond time to escape.
** In the third novel, Peterson's henchman clubs Drummond and brings him, unconscious, to Peterson. When Peterson muses that Drummond needs to be killed, the henchman points out that they might as well do it there and then. Peterson, who by now has a highly personal grudge against Drummond, rejects the idea out of hand, in favour of waiting until Drummond has recovered consciousness so he will know defeat before his death. This gives Drummond time to escape, and inflict some nasty injuries on the henchman too.
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
** The novels ''Literature/MenAtArms'' and ''Literature/WitchesAbroad'' both explain that bad guys don't kill the good guys straight away because they want to gloat, and make sure the good guy ''knows'' he's been beaten. In the first book it serves to show Carrot as a Good Man because he straightforwardly kills the bad guy without explanation; in the second it gives Granny Weatherwax a NotSoDifferentRemark moment, since she rather likes people she's defeated to know about it as well.
** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d and neatly subverted in ''Literature/{{Mort}}''. Mort, Princess Keli, the wizard Cutwell and others being surrounded by the villainous Duke, who Cutwell correctly identifies as "not the kind of man who ties you up in a cellar with just enough time for the mice to eat your ropes before the flood-waters rise. This is the kind of man who just kills you here and now." Also played straight in that the Duke is willing to offer them life-long banishment (we know how well that kind of thing turns out).
* Unsurprisingly, this happens regularly in the ''Literature/JamesBond'' novels. Some (like [[Literature/LiveAndLetDie Mr. Big]], who has actually put quite a bit of thought into it) are smarter about it than others (step forward, [[Literature/FromRussiaWithLove Donovan Grant]]). However, the highlight has to be ''Literature/TheManWithTheGoldenGun'', when M of all people gets this treatment from [[spoiler:Russia's newest assassin, James Bond]].
** In ''Literature/FromRussiaWithLove'', the [[DirtyCommunists Soviet]] [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]] Kronsteen lays a complicated and near-perfect trap for Literature/JamesBond. Everything works as planned, all the pawns including Bond [[BatmanGambit go through their predicted moves]], and Bond ends up exactly where the Russians want him. But at the crucial moment [[spoiler:the assassin Donovan Grant -- an Irishman who hates the English -- makes the fatal mistake of engaging in prolonged crowing, boasting and gloating instead of just going ahead with his assigned task of killing Bond. This gives Bond the chance to improvise a [[IndyPloy desperate spur-of-the-moment plan]] which works, enabling him to kill Donovan and use the information which Donovan carelessly revealed in order to catch the senior Soviet operative Rosa Klebb]]. However it should be noted that the whole reason for the elaborate plot was to create a scandal around Bond's death that would embarrass British Intelligence - if they'd simply wanted him dead, they could have had him quietly eliminated any number of ways in Istanbul - making all but the final, spoilered, instance of Bond Villain Stupidity a necessary part of the plan.
* This is probably the defining trait of ''Film/DrMabuse'', a diabolical mastermind with a few self-destructive tendencies from a series of German novels and films. He has been called the direct forerunner to Blofeld. Observe the MeaningfulName: "m'abuse" is French for "abuse myself". Mabuse is his own worst enemy.
* Literature/ModestyBlaise novels:
** In ''A Taste for Death'', Modesty and Willie are captured by the bad guys. The head villain of the group runs on ItAmusedMe and insists on keeping them alive to die in some slow and entertaining way, despite two of his underlings (who have lost to Modesty and Willie before) advocating that they should kill both straight away.
** In ''The Impossible Virgin'', Modesty and Willie are captured by the bad guys. The head villain decides to keep Modesty alive because he believes he can brainwash her into a useful subordinate. He decides Willie is too dangerous and has to go, but picks an elaborate death in order to increase the psychological effect on Modesty; [[NeverFoundTheBody there is no body]] and it eventually turns out that Willie survived. Meanwhile, the head villain is done in by one of his own subordinates who hates Modesty and doesn't want her in the organization. The new head villain sets Modesty up for a gory death, and fully intends to stick around to watch the whole thing, but reluctantly has to leave to deal with an emergency caused by the returned Willie, giving Modesty a chance to escape.
** In ''The Night of Morningstar'', Modesty and Willie are captured by the terrorist organization they've been investigating. The BigBad's second-in-command is in favor of killing them straight away to make sure they don't cause any more trouble, but the Big Bad sets his heart on an elaborate scheme in which they'll be kept alive until the terrorists' next, imminent, attack and used in a DeceasedFallGuyGambit. Modesty escapes from her restraints and she and Willie sink the villainous plot.
* ''Literature/WarriorCats'': Originally, it was believed that the only reason Tigerstar doesn't [[TalkingInYourDreams go into Firestar's dreams]] and kill him was because he ''couldn't''. However, WordOfGod revealed that he ''can'', but he just ''doesn't want to''.
-->'''Iceclaw:''' If Tigerstar can harm cats like he can and walk in their dreams, why doesn't he just do it to Firestar, take revenge, and get it over with?\\
'''Vicky:''' Because Tigerstar wants a long-drawn out kind of vengeance, involving as many cats as possible, so that Firestar truly suffers. ...
* Happens in ''Literature/HarryPotter''. Since Voldemort likes to establish a sense of grace and grandeur into his actions, he doesn't just kill Harry and be done with it.
** Near the end of ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'', Harry has been disarmed, gagged, and tied securely to a gravestone. Rather than simply killing Harry after using his blood to regain his body, Voldemort not only has Wormtail cut him loose and give him back his wand, but insists on fighting him in a one-to-one duel and forbids interference from any of his Death Eaters, for no other reason than to prove, once and for all, that he is the stronger of the two. The final result of this is that Harry manages to escape and tell the world about his return (not that many people listen at first).
** Averted by ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix Order of the Phoenix]]'', where Voldemort tries to kill Harry immediately, only to be stopped by [[TheCavalry Dumbledore]].
* Uncharacteristically occurs with [[Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy Grand Admiral Thrawn]], usually one of the smarter people in ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends''. He has just betrayed Mara Jade by tricking her into revealing Talon Karrde's location, leading to his arrest by Imperials who will torture him if he doesn't hand over important intel, and then smugly mouths off to her face about it. Mara predictably goes {{berserk|Button}} and attempts to attack Thrawn, at first physically then through the Force. Both of these fail, leaving Thrawn with the question of what to do with a still visibly enraged and always emotionally unstable Jade. Instead of killing her, he allows her to live, and lets her out of his sight aboard his ship before letting her go. Jade then predictably hacks into the computer network of Thrawn's ship, uses it to find Luke Skywalker, and saves him. The next one-and-a-half books can be accurately described as Jade [[MistreatmentInducedBetrayal sticking it to Thrawn]] which eventually leads to his plans collapsing and his death.
** Thrawn had figured that she was in a hopeless situation; no one among her old smuggling associates would trust her. This was an error on his part; she was able to convince Aves (one of Karrde's trusted associates) to lend her a Skipray Blastboat and an ysalamir, which she used to retrieve Luke from Jomark (and confront the insane Jedi Master there). Once Thrawn realized his mistake, he was quick to take steps to limit the damage, but the measures (most prominently, the attempt to stop Karrde's escape in ''Dark Force Rising'' and the attempt to kill or discredit her in ''The Last Command'') ultimately ended up being inadequate.
* ''Literature/TheJenniferMorgue'' had a very… ''[[InvokedTrope unique]]'' case. Realizing that he is a mad genius billionaire with access to world-ending technology and a strong desire to actually use it, the BigBad [[spoiler: sets up a geas that makes the tropes of a Bond movie reality. He plans to make it so that the only person who stands a chance of thwarting his plan is a solitary British secret agent... and if one of those manages to get through, then he'll shut off the geas so that said agent is nothing more than a solitary man hundreds of miles away from any back-up who can easily be killed]]. Small problem: [[spoiler: despite all his precautions, the BigBad completely fails to realize by the end that the geas he thought he ended is still operating, even when he's got the hero and his fellow agent bound up and prefers to monologue at them rather than just kill them]].
* ''Literature/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe'': The White Witch could have saved herself a lot of trouble if she'd just killed Edmund as soon as she met him. But in this case it's justified, since Edmund did not appear to represent any sort of threat personally, and she had a reasonable-seeming plan to use him to destroy her other enemies. She was in fact undone not by a flaw in her plan per se but by Divine mercy. As Aslan points out, her knowledge went only back to the beginning of Time. She was unaware of key things that happened before that. At one point she ''is'' about to kill him, realizing that he's no longer necessary to her plans, and in the middle of sharpening her knife when Edmund (currently tied to a tree) is rescued. The only reason the Witch initially kept Edmund alive was because she learned he had two sisters and a brother, fitting the prophecy that two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve would reclaim Narnia, and thus hoped to get all four dead or [[TakenForGranite petrified]] and be done with it. Her plan almost did work at one point, when the other three Pevensie siblings seriously gave thought to breaking into the Witch's castle to save Edmund, but were talked out of it by the Beavers. She finally gives up on the plan when the three Pevensie siblings reach Caer Paravel thus making their capture impossible, and realizes that simply killing Edmund would stop the prophecy from being fulfilled. By ''that'' point, the other assassins she'd sent to kill the children failed, and were used to track down and save Edmund.
* Most if not all of the villains in the ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' series fall victim to this. Probably the most egregious are the Volturi. In ''New Moon'', the only reason they don't want to kill Bella is because she looks like she'll make for an interesting vampire. Instead of just biting her then and there and holding her captive to brainwash her into being a member of their guard (which ''Breaking Dawn'' says is what they want from her), they decide to let her go back to Forks, and according to Edward will probably forget about her for thirty years or so, giving the Cullens plenty of time to turn her on their own terms, or hide her. In ''Breaking Dawn'', their goal was apparently to use Renesmee as an excuse to kill the Cullens/force some of them to join the guard. Instead of quickly going to Forks and doing the job, they spend a full month heading over (thus giving Alice a chance to see it and warn the family) and bring a ton of witnesses, which means they have to put on a show of being fair and let the Cullens go. The witnesses aren't even necessary, since WordOfGod says that the vampires generally accept the rule of the Volturi as right.
* In ''Literature/{{Crescendo}}'', [[spoiler:Rixon]] spends the entire book psychologically tormenting Nora, before getting ready to sacrifice her for a ritual. Given how she's unaware and unprotected for about 99% of the book, that he doesn't manage to pull it off is ''really'' astonishing. Nora even asks why he went through such an unnecessary and elaborate ruse instead of simply shooting her in the head while she was asleep. The only answer he gives is that the sacrifice is an important moment, and he wanted it to be enjoyable for him. He then kindly holds off on killing Nora while she asks him more questions about his plan, allowing [[spoiler:Patch]] to conveniently show up and save her.
* In Literature/{{Dragonlance}}, Verminaard, the BigBad in ''Dragons of Autumn Twilight'', manipulated Flamestrike, a Giant Red Dragon mother grieving for the loss of her children in The War of The Lance, into guarding his prisoners' children because in her senility and grief she came to regard and love the human children as if they were her own.own, and would willingly watch over them at all times. When he had the Heroes of The Lance, the escaping prisoners and their children cornered and dead to rights, Verminaard somehow believed it was a [[SarcasmMode bright idea]] to shout on the top of his lungs "I will destroy the children!" within ''earshot'' of said Red Dragon who has come to love said children. Cue Flamestrike bursting out of her lair in motherly-rage to protect her beloved "children", turning the tide of the battle in the Heroes of the Lance's favor.
* In Creator/JohnLeCarre's spy novels, Karla (the brilliant and ruthless Soviet spymaster) knows how dangerous to his plans George Smiley is but does nothing about it. Even his mole "Gerald" admits as much after Smiley captures him. There are two more novels where Smiley defeats Karla again and again, even leading [[spoiler: to Karla having to surrender himself to the West]]. Karla could easily have assassinated Smiley but never did. He could have gotten away with it, even without a cover plan but (since Smiley had the most unfaithful wife in fiction) he could easily have made it look like a crime of passion like murder/suicide. However, Karla is not an active participant in ''The Honourable Schoolboy'', and in both ''Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'' and ''Smiley’s People'', Smiley is retired and not a factor as far as Karla knows. In Le Carré’s books, much like the real world (at least at the time) murder is a '''big deal''' and something that he would use only under desperate circumstances, such as those of ''Smiley’s People''. There’s no good reason for him to try and have Smiley killed.
* In ''Literature/{{Relativity}}'', a villain named Rasmas manages to trap all of the heroes in a typically elaborate deathtrap. Unfortunately, he's ''inside the trap with them when he springs it.'' [[SaveTheVillain Guess what the heroes have to do next?]] Justified in "Candy Corn": The villains are ''actually'' stupid (not just "Bond Villain Stupid"), but they don't kill or even unmask the hero because they want to give him as a gift to their boss.
* {{Justified|Trope}} in ''Literature/{{Pact}}'', where the laws of karma mean that declaring what you're going to do (preferably to someone that you don't nominally control) gives you power, and leaving someone to die in a complicated death trap lets you defer karmic responsibility for their murder.
-->'''Ty''': You’re telling me the universe ''encourages'' being the Bond villain?
* In ''Literature/{{Frostbite}}'', Isaiah had Christian Ozera, Mia Rinaldi, Rose Hathaway, Mason Ashford, and Eddie Castile captured and chose to keep them alive for days. This allowed them to escape and fight back against him. Leading to his death.
* ''Literature/MarcusDidiusFalco''. Justified in ''The Jupiter Myth''. The BigBad Florius manages to escape by taking Petro hostage and leaving him in a death trap so that the heroes must spend time rescuing him instead of pursuing Florius.
%%* Clove from ''Literature/TheHungerGames''.
* An EnforcedTrope for the Bene-Tleilaxu in ''{{Literature/Dune}}''. The Tleilaxu follow a code of honor that mandates that whenever they plan to kill somebody, they must always leave the victim some kind of opening to escape if only they're smart enough to notice it. This is due to their strong [[TheSocialDarwinist Social Darwinist]] beliefs, the logic being that if the victim is smart enough to escape the DeathTrap, then they deserve to live.
* Many of the villains in the ''Literature/AlexRider'' series fall victim to this; Dr Grief plans to dissect Alex alive in a science class the following morning, giving him a window of opportunity in which to escape, Winston Yu hands him over to his snakehead to harvest his vital organs with similar results (albeit with the justification that Alex destroyed a large amount of extremely expensive equipment whilst attempting to escape, and this will allow Yu to recoup his losses), and Desmond [=McCain=] leaves him to be torn apart by crocodiles. However, Razim of ''Scorpia Rising'' (the final book in the series for many years, before writer Anthony Horowitz had a change of heart and decided to revive the series) manages to justify the trope in an unusual way: his plan not only requires Alex to be kept alive up until a certain point, it is ''absolutely vital'' that he is completely unmarked and unharmed until then.
* Played hilariously straight in ''Literature/AliceGirlFromTheFuture''. In ''The Kindness Ray'' novel, the local villain uses the aforementioned ray (which have a side-effect to induce living thing growth) to create a giant monster, which he unleashed against the heroes. He never realized that under the influence of the ''kindness'' ray, his monster would be absolutely unwilling to harm anyone.
* Lampshaded and justified in ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', when Taylor is teleported into a burning building, shot and left for dead while gunmen surround the building to make sure she doesn't get out. Afterwards, Taylor wonders why the villain responsible went to all that trouble when he could have just teleported her to a bomb and detonated it. Later on, she outright [[spoiler:asks Coil why he didn't do this, and he admits that he attempted the bomb plan repeatedly, and even tried teleporting her into a vat of acid, but the teleporter was built by Leet and went wrong whenever a bomb or acid was involved due to Leet's power actively sabotaging him. Coil was forced to keep changing the parameters of the scenario until he found a combination that wouldn't set off the inbuilt malfunction of the teleporter, and then Coil ran out of time due to the narrow window of opportunity and had to go with the burning building plan]].
* ''[[Literature/MarketOfMonsters Only Ashes Remain]]'': The villain Henry successfully captures the heroine Nita with no one around to save her or stop him or his 2 henchmen from killing her, he fully plans to kill her, she's tied up and defenseless, he and his 2 henchmen all have guns... and instead of killing her when he has the chance, he leaves her alive and lures his apprentice and her love interest Kovit to the location to teach him a lesson about ConflictingLoyalty. You can guess how it ends...
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Franchise/DragonBall'':
** During the original ''Manga/DragonBall'', in his fight against Goku during the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai, Tenshinhan, who was starting to feel overpowered by Goku's tremendous stamina and having several of his techniques outdone by Goku's very own, ingenuously decides that, if he cannot knock Goku unconscious or push him out of the platform, he will simply destroy the entire platform; that way, Goku will lose by ring out because there would be no platform left to stand on. Tenshinhan, who possesses the ability to fly, does not have that problem. He manages to destroy the platform with his powerful Kikouhou, but instead of simply waiting for Goku, who has jumped very high to escape the blast, to hit the ground, he decides to fly close to him, accompanying Goku as he fell down, in order to gloat about his inevitable victory. That opens an opportunity for Goku to use one last attack that knocks Tenshinhan unconscious, and now both fighters are falling to the ground. Subverted because Tenshinhan, by a stroke of luck, actually wins the fight, but he is likely in worse physical condition than Goku by the end of it. (In the manga he's a bit smarter; he intends to stay where he is and watch Goku fall, but Goku reacts quickly.)
** For a ProfessionalKiller, Tao Pai Pai is pretty damn careless. After his first fight with Goku, he shoots him with a Dodonpa, seemingly killing him, but Tao Pai Pai doesn't bother to actually check Goku's body to make sure. Naturally, Goku is still very much alive, and while Tao Pai Pai is off doing other things, Goku trains with Karin to gain enough power to beat him.
** ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' has many examples of this:
*** Frieza shows that he completely outclasses Goku and the rest of the heroes while only fighting at 50% power and that he could kill all of them in an instant, and yet he toys with them and lets the fight drag on... until Goku transforms, that is. Frieza himself even lampshades the fact that he should probably just take Goku out right now after the 20x Kaioken, but he still keeps screwing around anyway. He lampshades it again after Goku transforms, kicking himself for not just killing Goku when he had the chance; by the time he realizes this, however, he has no hope of victory.
*** Before then, Frieza's elite, Zarbon, beats Vegeta senseless and drops him into a lake, but refuses to check for Vegeta's body and make sure he's actually dead, in part because he doesn't want to mess up his hair by doing so. Frieza furiously lambasts Zarbon for his idiocy, correctly surmising that Vegeta has found and hidden at least one Dragon Ball and Zarbon's actions may very well have cost them their chances at finding it.
*** During the Cell Saga, Vegeta, after having trained for a year in the [[YearInsideHourOutside Room of Spirit and Time]], powers up to [[http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Super_Saiyan_Second_Grade Super Saiyan Second Grade,]] and becomes much, much stronger than his opponent, Semi-Perfect Cell. Rather than finish him here, Vegeta lets Cell absorb Android 18 and upgrade to his Perfect form, lusting for a greater fight. Cue Perfect Cell completely [[CurbStompBattle Curb-Stomping]] Vegeta, and later Trunks. While Vegeta is on the good guys' side at this time, the effect is the same.
*** Vegeta also indulged in this as a villain during the Saiyan Saga, when he decided to wait for three hours for Goku to return to Earth so he and Nappa could crush the hopes of Earth's warriors.
*** Cell himself makes the exact same mistake. After ascending to his Perfect form, and defeating Piccolo, Vegeta, Trunks, and Android 16 in the process, he becomes the most powerful being on earth. Rather than kill everyone, he opts to give the Z-Fighters 10 days to prepare for a tournament. Those were probably the [[LegoGenetics Vegeta cells]] inside him, as Vegeta himself does this a few times as well, as mentioned above. Taken UpToEleven during his fight with Gohan, where, after discovering Gohan's hidden power, does everything he can to [[RageBreakingPoint piss Gohan off enough to unleash said power]] just because he wants a more challenging fight; keep in mind that he tricked Vegeta into doing the ''exact same thing'' in order to ascend to his Perfect form, and [[EvilGloating openly mocked Vegeta for being stupid enough to fall for it]].
*** ''Insanely'' {{inverted|Trope}} with [[OmnicidalManiac Majin Buu.]] He has the Z-Fighters cornered, but Piccolo makes [[ShootTheDog a sick choice that will buy them more time]] -- suggesting to Buu that it would be more fun to kill the rest of the humans on Earth in the meantime (knowing that they can reverse the damage with the Dragonballs if they can power up enough to survive the fight), [[WhatTheHellHero prompting horrified reactions all around]]. Buu [[NiceJobBreakingItHero simply kills the remaining survivors with one attack]], then proceeds to thin the numbers of the Z-Fighters and [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt blow up the world.]]
*** ''Dragon Ball'' generally inverts this trope almost as much as it plays it straight. The Heroes are just as prone to holding back in their fights or letting the villains go, just to result in them coming back stronger later. The worst offender is probably Gohan, who, due to not possessing the same natural fighting instinct and impulse control of the Saiyans and willing martial artists, has a problem with holding back too much during his fights due to some emotional or subconscious drive and giving the villains too many openings.
*** {{Averted|Trope}} with Future Trunks. After improving by going back in time, he is much more powerful when he faces Android 17 and 18 and Imperfect Cell. He wastes no time [[CurbStompBattle Curb-Stomping]] them, making sure that they are gone. Makes sense, since he grew up in misery, watching all of his loved ones die, and saw his world destroyed by the Androids. He just wants them finished as soon as possible.
* After knocking about most of the cast with ease, [[BigBad Roa]] of ''[[VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}} Shingetsutan Tsukihime]]'' inexplicably declares "WeWillMeetAgain" and [[VillainExitStageLeft falls backwards]] off a bridge while [[EvilLaugh laughing madly]]. This isn't the only instance, but it is by far the most entertaining.
** Roa does this during the game as well. He goes off on a long-winded display and speech that not only allows Shiki to think but also [[UnstoppableRage pisses him off]], which allows him to retaliate.
** Justified in the game version, where he believed he and Shiki were equals and as such felt perfectly justified [[ExpositionBreak in explaining to Shiki many important background details]].
* Done quite deliberately by Jeremiah Gottwald in the GrandFinale of ''Anime/CodeGeass'', when he [[spoiler:calls off Lelouch's Knightmare Royal Guard and duels the attacking Zero/Suzaku by himself, so as to allow Suzaku to convincingly kill Lelouch for world peace]].
** In episode 4, Jeremiah does this NOT on purpose when [[spoiler:Clovis' personal car -- hijacked by Zero and company -- make their way towards Suzaku's execution. When asked by his subordinates in security if they should blow up the car, Jeremiah replies "No! I shall take them myself!" If it hadn't been for Jeremiah's arrogance, the whole show would've ended right then and there]].
** Lelouch himself does this several times, such as when he [[spoiler:taunts Euphemia during the hostage situation about his hatred of the royal family (planting the seeds in her mind that Zero might be Lelouch). He also reveals to Suzaku that he knows Suzaku's deepest secret -- that Suzaku killed his own father -- in order to appear omniscient. Not only does this fail to recruit him, but Suzaku begins to suspect Zero's identity, as Lelouch is one of the few who knows Suzaku is a patricide]].
* Subverted in the fifth ''LightNovel/TheGardenOfSinners'' movie. [[BigBad Araya]] mercilessly [[spoiler:''destroys'' Tohko, but keeps her head alive on purpose -- she's created multiple exact duplicates of her own body and linked them to herself, so whenever she is "killed", her consciousness transfers to the next body]], making her ''depend'' on this trope. When [[TheDragon Alba]] fulfills the trope and [[spoiler:crushes her head]], she comes back ''with a vengeance([[EldritchAbomination -in-a-box]])''.
* ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'': After [[CurbStompBattle stomping]] Negi and his team, Fate decides they aren't completely worthless because they ''barely'' pulled off not dying of the wounds he inflicted. Instead of, you know, killing them in the face like he's clearly capable of, he says 'Okay I'm bored just gonna blow the gate up now. By the way, you suck Negi. Go level grind moar. Later' [[spoiler:May be justified in that he intended to use Negi and seems oddly reluctant to actually kill people. Also definitely planning on using Asuna for something, but we don't know what yet]]. It eventually turns out that [[spoiler:he's capable of [[RealityWarper changing the reality of the magic world on a whim]], so his belief that they pose him no threat is at least partially justified]].
* In the ''LightNovel/{{Kampfer}}'' anime, [[spoiler:Kaede Sakura]] had one of the good guys under her control, and used her to defeat the other blue and red Kämpferinnen. But instead of just killing them like she said she would do, she tied them up with a chain, [[JustBetweenYouAndMe gloated at Shizuku]], and tried to use the mind-controlled ally to kill them instead. However, not only did said victim break free of the mind control, but the heroes got HeroicResolve so strong they broke free and [[CurbStompBattle went to town on the enemy.]]
* Happens a couple of times in ''Anime/BlackLagoon'', as a sign that the person in question is an amateur who's out of their depth in [[WretchedHive Roanapur]].
** While Revy and Dutch are clearing out a boat full of Neo-Nazis, one of the Nazis manages to ambush Revy and... launches into a lengthy speech about his awesomeness, the awesomeness of the Aryan race, the awesomeness of the gun he's about to kill Revy with... This goes on for nearly a full minute before Revy gets fed up, shoots him, and sardonically asks whether he was trying to kill her or sell the gun to her.
** Happens twice in the space of three minutes in the "Hunt for Greenback Jane" arc. First, [[ChainsawGood Sawyer]] chases Rock and Jane onto the roof of the burning dockyard, but instead of just cutting them up, she instead launches into a very long (and thanks to her speech synthesiser, very slow) speech about how she's going to enjoy doing so. Then an explosion triggered by the fire knocks the synthesiser out of her hands, and she suffers a FreakOut that takes her out of the fight. While Lagoon Company are discussing what to do with her, Lotton the Wizard appears on the opposite rooftop, unseen by anyone, with a clear shot... and launches into a dramatic introduction that gets cut short when Revy shoots him. Apparently he was GenreSavvy enough to wear a bulletproof vest, but not savvy enough to just shoot first. [[DragonLady Shenhua]] even lampshades afterwards what a stupid idea that was.
* At one point in ''Anime/SonicTheHedgehogTheMovie'', Tails is using a bit of AppliedPhlebotinum, about the size of a wrist watch, to mess with Metal Sonic's programming. From off-screen, Dr. Robotnik whips out a laser gun and shoots the machine right off Tails' wrist, then he orders Metal Sonic to kill Sonic and Tails. Logic dictates that Robotnik could have just as easily saved a step by [[BoomHeadshot shooting Tails in the head]].
* In ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'', Lust stabs [[spoiler:Mustang and Havoc]] and leaves them to bleed to death on the floor and doesn't actually watch them die. Cue her surprise when [[spoiler:Mustang comes back to kill her, having cauterized his own wound with fire]].
** Wrath takes it a step further. Having observed [[spoiler:Mustang brutally burn his sister to death]], he determines that the currently extremely vulnerable [[spoiler:Mustang]] should be left alive, on the logic that [[spoiler:Mustang is too valuable to kill, as his alchemical skill is likely good enough to open the Gate]]. While he's completely right, and [[spoiler:Mustang being forced through the Gate is eventually what triggers the city-wide transmutation circle]], Wrath has still made the decision ''not'' to kill the one person who, besides being smart and having a [[ItsPersonal personal vendetta]] against them, is ''exceptionally'' good at [[spoiler:killing homunculi.]] This ends poorly for the bad guys.
*** Of course, had Wrath decided otherwise he would've had to clear the room of witnesses before [[spoiler: Mustang added the most vulnerable homunculus (due to not having a Philosopher's Stone) to his kill list]].
* Quite prominent in ''Manga/{{Naruto}}''; every time a villain has the hero in the bag, they invariably will stop to gloat, allow said hero to get back up to make the fight more fun, or just decide to be idiots instead of killing them right then and there.
** Notably when Orochimaru had the Third cornered with a kunai and instead of just SLICING HIS HEAD OFF like any smart person, decided to [[spoiler:do a huge elaborate drama in which he summoned the Third Hokage's own teachers to kill him, resulting in Orochimaru losing the use of his arms]].
** Sadistically {{subverted|Trope}} by Hidan: he savors killing so much, he toys with poor [[spoiler:Asuma]] to the very end, who really does get KilledOffForReal.
** Unbelievably {{subverted|Trope}} with the power of Edo Tensei -- everyone under its control is ''already dead.'' As such, a MagnificentBastard may pull any form of KickTheDog they want without fear of getting killed by retaliation. However, they can still have their souls sealed away or put to rest. Absolute villains like Deidara, Kakuzu, and [[spoiler:Madara Uchiha]] push it to extremes, while others, like Sasori, [[spoiler:Gaara's father]], Nagato, and Itachi use it as means to apologize or atone. [[spoiler:Itachi]] even has his free will back!
** Justified in the case of [[spoiler:[[GreaterScopeVilain Kaguya]] [[PhysicalGod Ōtsutsuki]]]]. Being so powerful she never encountered a real challenge or situation where she wasn't free to do as she wished. It's not that she's intentionally passing up chances to end the fight so she can toy with her opponents (though she does consider them beneath her), but rather that she ''seriously'' doesn't know any better.
* At one point in ''Manga/{{Saki}}'', [[OpposingSportsTeam Amae Koromo]], who has been dominating the game since she appeared, has the opportunity to give one of her opponents a negative score, thus instantly ending the game and winning the tournament for her team. However, instead of doing this, she quite deliberately makes a lower-scoring move which reduces said opponent's score to exactly zero instead (according to [[HouseRules the rules of this particular tournament]], someone with a score of zero has a chance to come back) just because she wants to psychologically manipulate everyone and prevent the other players from making a certain type of high-scoring move. Sure enough, this buys our hero just enough time to come up with a way to win.
* In the second ''Manga/BlackJack'' {{O|riginalVideoAnimation}}AV, when the title character stumbles upon an international drug ring working with a local hospital administrator in the course of treating a coma patient, instead of just shooting him, the gangsters drug Black Jack and leave him to die in a burning peyote grow op.
* ''Anime/SailorMoon'' has Queen Beryl put Jadeite in Eternal Sleep just as he's about to reveal who the Sailor Senshi really were. Had she not been so impatient to kill Jadeite for his latest failure, the Sailor Senshi would've been goners for sure.
* In ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'', [[spoiler:Ryoko Asakura]] tries to kill Kyon with a knife, giving him a chance to dodge. When that doesn't work, she freezes him in place, and it is later implied that she could have just outright deleted him from existence. She's a malfunctioning alien bio-robot, so it makes sense.
* The Dark Signers from ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'' weren't known for being smart, but the biggest example of stupidity on their part was when Yusei's duel with Kiryu left the hero battered, wounded, close to death, and with a fear of the villain that would take ''several'' episodes to recover from. Why didn't Kiryu finish him off when he had the chance? He claimed it "wasn't the right time." (Kiryu was almost the living definition of AxCrazy at the time, so at least he had ''that'' as an excuse.)
* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'':
** Luppi thinks he's taken down Hitsugaya in one strike and doesn't follow through. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Hitsugaya when he points out that all it did was give him all the time in the world to set up an attack that could curb-stomp Luppi. Luppi was also mocked by his peers upon returning to Hueco Mundo for having been defeated so completely.
** Aizen sets up an elaborate method of ensuring Ichigo can train for a power upgrade before they fight. [[spoiler:He was hoping Ichigo would achieve a level of power strong enough for Aizen to reach a new level of power. Unfortunately for Aizen, he completely underestimated Ichigo's growth potential and ended up being curbstomped.]]
* During the final battle in ''Anime/PlasticLittle'', the main villain has Tita by the neck and is counting down until he breaks it, when Tita finishes it from him and blows his brains out. What makes it particularly stupid is that the villain ''knows'' Tita is holding the gun (and she is still capable of using it) and doesn't do anything to disarm her.
* ''Manga/OnePiece'':
** Played with in Alabasta; Crocodile traps most of the heroes in a cage, tosses the key to one of his giant pet crocodiles, and lets water slowly fill the room. After he leaves, it seems like he's just being overconfident that the good guys are doomed, but it turns out that he has the real key to the cage -- the one he tossed was a fake. Nonetheless, the heroes escape thanks to a ChekhovsGun while he's gone.
** During the Dressrosa Arc, there's an example of this plus NiceJobFixingItVillain: the Straw Hats' plan to liberate the island required knocking Sugar out, thus undoing the effect of her Devil Fruit power on previous victims, which had turned them into toys and made them her slaves (a number that, over ten years, had amounted to thousands). The initial plan was to trick her into eating an incredibly spicy Tatababasco berry disguised as a grape, which would make her collapse. But the plan didn't work well, to say the least; Sugar's toys found out about it, and in the ensuing confrontation ended with Robin becoming a victim of the power in an attempt to restrain Sugar, Usopp beaten up by Sugar's bodyguard Trebol, and the Straw hats' Tontatta allies beaten senseless. It would seem the heroes were, well, doomed. Until Sugar decided that, rather than use her power on Usopp (which she ''usually'' did to captured prisoners, and really had no reason to stop now) she would make him suffer, and force fed him the Tatababasco. It made Usopp make a WildTake to end all Wild Takes, scaring Sugar into submission and, while not the way they planned, knocked her out, doing the job anyway.
*** It should be noted that Sugar wasn't aware that it was Tatababasco and mistook it for poison. She was in belief that it might kill him (in a painful way).
* In the second to last episode of the first season of ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'', Sugou/Oberon, who has spammed his GameMaster status and traps Kirito and Asuna, stabs Kirito with Kirito's own sword after chaining up Asuna before he does his AttemptedRape on her. After stabbing Kirito into the ground, he's about to change the pain absorber, which, once it drops below level 3, starts affecting a user's body in the real world. Given that he was in complete control of situation and the world in which Kirito was trapped in, Oberon could've turned it off all the way on Kirito by setting the absorber to level 0 (or at least below 3) to ensure he will never have to deal with Kirito again in either the digital or real worlds. And if that happened, seeing Asuna in pain as Oberon rapes her would potentially inflict more pain and stress on Kirito and kill him in real life. Sugou wins, the end! Instead, being overconfident in his complete control of the situation, he sets it to level 8, insisting on gradually decreasing the levels to increase the pain to "give [Kirito] something to look forward to". Because of this, Kirito isn't completely dead, and gets help from Kayaba's digital spirit, who gives Kirito his admin status to turn the tables on Oberon by setting his in-game level to 1, and turning off the pain absorber on ''Oberon himself'', then proceeds to kill him, thus, foiling Sugou/Oberon's plans. Even if Sugou had no way of foreseeing Kayaba's intervention, that still wasn't exactly a smart move.
* During midterms in ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', Mineta and Sero are put in a mock battle against the Pro Hero Midnight (playing the role of a villain the two have to subdue or escape past). Midnight knocks Sero out easily, but not before he slings Mineta out of range of her sleeping gas. Midnight admits she could just camp the exit until Mineta runs out of time and fails, but her sadistic streak rears up and she gives chase, giving Mineta time to regroup and trap Midnight for the win. This instance may be [[JustifiedTrope justified]] since it's an exam, and she's giving them a fair chance to pass.
[[/folder]]

Note that there are several legitimate reasons why the villain may opt to let the hero walk away; if any of these are in play, this trope is not.

[[folder:''James Bond'']]
A recurring FatalFlaw for many villains in the ''Film/JamesBond'' series is their refusal to just kill Bond in an easy, convenient, or practical way. It's gotten so ubiquitous with them that the series has become the {{Trope Namer|s}}. The antagonists in any ''Bond'' movie tend to [[EvilGloating gloat]] about their {{Evil Plan}}s, but by then, 007 has already cooked up a plan B to escape and defeat the baddies. The following are the examples in the order the films were released.
----
* ''Film/DrNo'':
** After [[NoMrBondIExpectYouToDine a dinner goes wrong]], Dr. No orders his guards to beat Bond up and imprison him. 007 naturally escapes. Arguably justified in that this was the first Bond film, so nobody knew how dangerous he could be.
** In [[Literature/DrNo the book]], he also had Bond run through Dr. No's death course. Bond was close to dying through it, multiple times. As did everyone else Dr. No had "tested"; the course was designed to kill. The only difference Dr. No ever expected was how long it would take. Funny how much difference a stolen lighter and a steak knife (and Bond!) can make...
* In ''Film/FromRussiaWithLove'', Red Grant's plan is to [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim just shoot Bond]], and he actually manages to get the drop on his target and have him completely at his mercy, but he still fails because he can't resist indulging in some EvilGloating and a JustBetweenYouAndMe speech. In Red's defense, he still would have been fine if he hadn't fallen for Bond's bribe. At least he didn't leave the guy unattended, unlike most of the jokers on this list.
** He'd also had plenty of opportunities to kill Bond before he even got on the train, but his failure to do so was his superior's fault: Red's boss' boss (Blofeld in the movie, General G in the novel) didn't just want Bond to die, he wanted him to die in a manner that would embarrass [=MI6=] and the British government, which required a more elaborate setup then just shooting him as he walked down the street.
* Averted ''and'' played straight by ''Film/{{Goldfinger}}''. Audric Goldfinger was originally going to just have Bond sliced in half by a laser, but moments from loosing his manhood Bond himself points out that if he dies, then the [[UsefulNotes/SecretIntelligenceService Secret Service]] will just send in [[HeroOfAnotherStory some guy called 008]]. Goldfinger decides instead to keep Bond alive and trick his superiors into thinking Bond has the situation well in hand. This works, and Goldfinger's plan probably would have succeeded if Bond hadn't used the opportunity to [[HighHeelFaceTurn charm]] Pussy Galore.
** In the same film, however, Goldfinger plays the trope straight in dealing with his gangster accomplices. While he is showing them his plan with an elaborate miniature Fort Knox, one gangster demands to leave and take his gold with him. They load the gold in a car and Oddjob drives him away, ostensibly to the airport. Oddjob kills him as soon as the gangster notices they aren't heading to the airport. Instead of just dumping the body, however he takes the car, with the body in it, to an auto yard where it is cubed. He then returns to the farm where Goldfinger says they will have to extract the gold from the car. The kicker is that, after that gangster left, Goldfinger had the room sealed and all the other gangsters gassed to death anyway. So why not just excuse himself for a minute, leaving that one guy with the others and kill them all at once as he had already planned to do, instead of destroying a car for no reason (and even then, why not just take the gold out of the car ''before'' making it a three foot by three foot cube, rather than ''after'')?
** Notably, in the novel, the gangster who opted out of the plan "fell down the stairs" on his way out of the meeting, and the others all agreed to join the plan and were left alive, rather than the elaborate setup from the movie.
** At one point Bond escapes his cell. Instead of trying to escape from the farm, he finds Goldfinger and the two sit drinking lemonade while Goldfinger explains his plan.
* ''Film/{{Thunderball}}'':
** Fiona Volpe successfully seduces Bond - not that that's especially difficult to do - and doesn't do a HighHeelFaceTurn, but then monologues about it and generally screws around until Bond escapes, killing her shortly thereafter. Helga Brandt makes almost the exact same mistake a film later, [[YouHaveFailedMe though she's instead killed by her superior for being a moron]].
*** BigBad Largo himself provides a classic example. He catches Bond in his pool fighting with one of his men. The mook with him is just about to shoot Bond, but Largo stops him and instead traps Bond in there to be eaten by his sharks. Naturally, Bond uses this to escape.
* In ''Film/YouOnlyLiveTwice'', Blofeld's guilty of it at least twice; first, he sends an assassin to kill Bond with an elaborate poison trick while he sleeps… you know, instead of shooting him or dropping a grenade on him or any of the myriad other ways to kill a sleeping guy from roughly the same distance. Later, he catches Bond in his base, and keeps him alive because he wants Bond to witness his success even though he really ought to know better than that by now. He even pulls an elaborate fakeout where [[BlofeldPloy he seems like he's about to shoot Bond, but shoots his own henchman instead at the last second]]. A little while after that, he finally tries to shoot Bond for real, but of course by then it's too late with Tiger Tanaka stopping him with a well-aimed shuriken.
* Justified in ''Film/OnHerMajestysSecretService'', where for once Blofeld actually has a sensible reason for keeping the captured 007 alive and explaining the plot to him: Bond as a government agent would be an external witness to his activities to verify his claims that he can actually release a "Virus Omega" and is not merely bluffing.
* In ''Film/DiamondsAreForever'', Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd had Bond unconscious and they simply dumped him in an unfinished pipeline and left, [[SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere assuming he'd eventually die]]. Doubly stupid, as this was the ''second time'' the pair had been given an unconscious James Bond to dispose of; the first time they tried to burn him alive, which admittedly would have worked as he was only saved by other villains.
* Most of ''Film/LiveAndLetDie'' revolves around this, as the villains sequentially attempt an elaborate assassination involving a snake (despite having keys to his room), leave him unattended on a small island to be eaten by alligators, and finally try to have him fed to sharks - admittedly a classic - instead of just shooting him, despite by then having had enough experience with the guy to know better.
* ''Film/TheManWithTheGoldenGun'':
** Bond takes up Hai Fat's invitation to join him for dinner in his mansion while pretending to be Francisco Scaramanga, not knowing that the ''real'' Scaramanga had already gotten in touch with the guy. When he arrives there late at night, he's incapacitated by some guards in an ambush. As they're about to kill him, Hai Fat forbids them from doing so because he doesn't want Bond killed in his home. They'll just take him somewhere else to finish him off, right? Nope. Hai Fat has Bond placed in a krabi krabong school to... get beaten up. Scaramanga rightfully ridicules Hai Fat's thinking [[spoiler:before killing him]].
** Justifiably invoked by Scaramanga late in the film; he freely admits that he could have used his solar-powered laser to blow up Bond's plane before he even landed on the island, but chose not to do so because of how unsatisfying it would be. Scaramanga would like nothing better than to engage in "[[UltimateShowdownOfUltimateDestiny a duel between titans]]" with 007 himself.
* ''Film/TheSpyWhoLovedMe'': Karl Stromberg orders his soldiers to take Bond to imprisoned with the American, British, and Soviet submariners [[IHaveYouNowMyPretty while he leaves with Major Anya Amasova]], instead of simply shooting them. Bond easily escapes and he frees the submariners and they fight back against their captors, eventually foiling Stromberg's hopes of instigating WWIII. Later, as Bond makes it to Atlantis to stop Stromberg and save Anya, Stromberg first tries to send Bond down a booby-trapped elevator into his shark tank, but Bond manages to avoid the trap. Later, Stromberg finally tries to shoot Bond himself with a special gun hidden beneath his dining table, and again, Bond avoids the attack and he finishes off Stromberg himself.
* ''Film/ForYourEyesOnly'':
** In TheTeaser, [[LawyerFriendlyCameo "Blofeld"]] opts to toy with Bond in the helicopter, instead of just crashing it as soon as he takes control. Justified in this case by the fact that "Blofeld" had looked forward to killing Bond for a long time and had been crippled by him - [[ForTheEvulz he wanted Bond to suffer]].
** The main villain is guilty of it as well, choosing to kill Bond and the Bond Girl by dragging them behind his boat and assuming sharks ate them when they finally disappeared as opposed to shooting them ''before'' throwing them overboard and then using the sharks to dispose of the evidence.
* ''Film/{{Octopussy}}'':
** Averted earlier in the film: After learning Bond has escaped from his palace, [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame Kamal Khan goes on a literal manhunt after him]], and he almost succeeds before Bond gets away with some tourists that happened to be passing by.
** Downplayed later on, when [[RenegadeRussian General Orlov]] and Kamal have snuck a nuclear warhead into an US Air Force base in West Germany and have set it to detonate. After Kamal and [[TheDragon Gobinda]] have left, they see Bond hurriedly driving to the base to try to prevent it from detonating. However, they let him him go since the German police are pursuing him, thus believing he'd fail to make it there in time.
* ''Film/AViewToAKill'':
** Early on, Zorin decides to kill Bond by rolling his car into a lake, presumably to MakeItLookLikeAnAccident. [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]], though, as Zorin does try to get it done while James is still unconscious and even stays at the lake long enough to make sure James couldn't have survived (James ''does'' survive by spotting that Zorin was watching and using the air from the tire to stay underwater until Zorin left). That doesn't, however, justify Zorin not killing Bond ''before'' dumping him in the car, in the same manner as the agent who had posed as Bond's driver. Lastly, he would have probably failed to MakeItLookLikeAnAccident anyway since [[TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch he had plopped Bond's driver in the back seat right next to Bond rather than at the wheel]].
** Later, Zorin has Bond at his mercy but decides to kill him by locking him in a museum and setting it on fire. Justified, however, in that he wants to frame Bond for the murder of someone else and make it look like he failed to escape after setting the museum on fire himself.
* Averted in ''Film/TheLivingDaylights'' as the villain's whole plan hinges on Bond killing someone on his say so and his own ability to look like the victim and/or hero. He does miss a good opportunity to kill Bond late in the film, but it's because he thinks sending Bond to jail will be better for his cover - which he'd be right about, if Bond hadn't already outsmarted him a few scenes before.
* Averted again in ''Film/LicenceToKill'' as the villain does ensure Bond is sliding towards the shredder and only leaves because the factory's blowing up around him. Even then a henchman stays to finish the job and the only reason Bond survives is the unforseeable intervention of his companion.
* In ''Film/GoldenEye'', the villains have several opportunities to just shoot Bond and don't. Then Ouroumov has the chance to shoot Bond, ''announces that he is about to do it'', and then is promptly cold-cocked. What moves this into beyond-belief territory is that ''both'' have direct evidence of how dangerous he is when cornered. The only such opportunity that has a justified reason for not killing him is in the Statue yard, where Trevelyan is trying to frame Bond and Natalya for the theft of the helicopter. If a post-explosion examination of the bodies revealed that they had been shot beforehand, it would have raised suspicion. Also, given Trevelyan's motivations, it's not merely enough to kill Bond, and if it would be he usually has more pragmatic reasons for keeping them alive. The aforementioned frame-up is just the first such example.
* Elliot Carver was preparing to do this in ''Film/TomorrowNeverDies'', leaving Mr. Stamper and his henchmen to torture Bond and Wai Lin for an ungodly number of hours before letting them die, but the heroes decide to make their escape before Carver even leaves the room.
* Zig-zagged by Elektra King in ''Film/TheWorldIsNotEnough''. For most of the film, she averts the trope in that her aim is to seduce Bond into becoming her new Renard, rather than to kill him. When she ''does'' decide to kill Bond, however, she straps him to a torture chair that will slowly apply pressure to the back of his neck until it snaps. She is, admittedly, about five seconds away from succeeding when [[BigDamnHeroes Zukozsky intervenes]], but she ''would'' have succeeded if she hadn't stopped to gloat between each turn of the screw. What truly moves this into "stupidity" territory is that [[spoiler:when Zukovsky arrives, she pulls out a gun and shoots him, then instead of shooting Bond too, she '''''drops the gun in front of him and runs away''''', in the delusional belief that he [[WouldntHitAGirl wouldn't shoot a previous lover]]. Even after she tried to kill him not ten seconds ago.]] This ends about as well for Elektra as you'd expect.
* It's either {{lampshade|Hanging}}d or a spectacularly bad example, albeit not involving Bond himself: In ''Film/DieAnotherDay'', two henchmen have Jinx at their mercy, and one ''actually proposes shooting her''... but the other one wants to do it with lasers, and gets his way, allowing Bond time to arrive and rescue her. Earlier in the film, Bond gets out a Bullet-Proof Vest and Colonel Moon keeps shooting it until it falls off into the ground.
* In ''Film/{{Casino Royale|2006}}'' Mr. White makes a dumb and wholly unnecessary deal to keep Bond alive. It ends poorly for him in ''Film/{{Spectre}}''.
* Not quite averted in ''Film/QuantumOfSolace'', as while the villains never really have Bond at their mercy the way they usually do at least once a movie, they do, however, leave the oft-imperiled Bond girl alive way too many times, and she ends up having as much to do with their downfall as 007 does.
* Raoul Silva in ''Film/{{Skyfall}}'' initially toys with Bond instead of killing him because it's all part of his plan to get caught so he can exact revenge on M. Later, however, his failure to take advantage of various opportunities to kill the heroes after said plan has already run its course is best chalked up to PlotArmor and SanityHasAdvantages.
* Crops up several times in ''Film/{{Spectre}}''. BigBad Oberhauser's [[EvilIsPetty petty desire]] to sadistically torment and relish in Bond's suffering [[spoiler:due to their CainAndAbel relationship]] leads to his downfall.
** First, when he has Bond at his mercy in his secret base, he just decided to go all EvilGloating and BreakTheBadass on both Bond and the BondGirl, and then he'd get to killing Bond after the ColdBloodedTorture instead of instantaneously killing 007. This gives 007 ample time to bail out and conjure a plan to take down Oberhauser and [[spoiler:C]].
** The second time, he constructs an elaborate DeathTrap, giving Bond a SadisticChoice: escape now on your own but live with the guilt of not saving [[spoiler:Madeleine Swann]] in time for the rest of your life, or try to rescue [[spoiler:Swann]] and die together. [[spoiler:Bond TakesAThirdOption, and he not only manages to save Swann in the nick of time, he also gives chase to Blofeld and has him arrested for his crimes.]] In this case, Oberhauser was playing on Bond's feelings to get him to fall, but since he was more interested in tormenting Bond rather than killing him, this gave Bond plenty of time to find [[spoiler:Swann]] and then escape.
** Oberhauser's henchmen aren't too bright either. When they kidnap Bond, they tie his hands in front of him, with plastic zip ties. Sure enough, Bond is able to grab one of their guns and shoot them both, then break free.
** [[spoiler:[[EvilAllAlong C/Max Denbigh]]]] himself is guilty of this, as he had many chances to kill M so he [[spoiler:won't hinder his EvilPlan to seize control of the world's intelligence agencies and forward the collected intel to SPECTRE, but opts to go for BreakThemByTalking near the climax. He also fails to realize that M managed to do a sweep of his office and empty his gun before C gets there, being that M is a former field agent unlike C, who's more of a corrupt paper-shuffler. He finally tries to kill M, but M manages to grab C's gun and send him down a DisneyVillainDeath]].
* ''Film/NoTimeToDie'': NoNonsenseNemesis Safin brutally averts this. By acting like a pragmatic, logical & underhanded villain, unburdened by ego ''or'' theatrics, he's ultimately able to accomplish what no other villain in the series' history could ever do: [[spoiler: successfully kill James Bond.]]
** Spectre, on the other hand, plays it straight. With their ComplexityAddiction on full display, Spectre's operatives all assemble in a single location in Cuba and lure James Bond there, with the intent of watching him be dramatically executed in a demonstration of experimental [[{{Nanomachines}} nanomachine]] technology coded to Bond's DNA. However, [[spoiler:Safin and Dr. Valdo Obruchev hijack the means of execution to instead target all the Spectre agents, leading to them dying ''en masse'' while Bond is unharmed. This destroys ''the entire organization''.]]
* [[https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/bond-villain-monologues/ Empire]] listed the [[EvilGloating Bond Villain Monologues]], while stating on all "[[StatingTheSimpleSolution What he should have done]]: [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim Shot Him]]", save ''Film/TomorrowNeverDies''. There, the villain should have "Bought Website/{{Google}}." To be fair, General Whittaker in ''Film/TheLivingDaylights'' only monologued to distract Bond as a remote control gun was aiming to shoot him.
* The AnimatedAdaptation, called ''WesternAnimation/JamesBondJr'' if anything had this problem even worse because of being a kids cartoon. With sixty-five episodes and half a dozen novellas there's far too many examples to list in detail, but for instance "The Heart Break Caper" had the villains tie James Jr. and his friends to a support beam and leave them to be scalded to death with a blast of steam. As soon as they're alone, James Jr. starts cutting his way free with a miniature buzzsaw in his GadgetWatch.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films — Animation]]
* Edgar in ''WesternAnimation/TheAristocats''. Gee, leaving a bunch of cats out on the countryside to get rid of them, wonder if they'll find their way back! In RealLife, cats are known to be able to find their way back to their owners from extreme distances, but since Edgar is TooDumbToLive he probably does not know this. This should explain why he simply assumed the cats would outlive him after taking the old saying that cats have nine lives literally and multiplying nine by their expected lifespan, an assumption that got the plot moving in the first place.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheGreatMouseDetective'': Professor Ratigan has Basil in the ideal situation: bound in a DeathTrap, demoralized from being outwitted, and helpless. However, instead of staying to watch the death trap go off, Ratigan just leaves Basil to his fate. It's justified, since Ratigan wanted to stay and watch Basil get splatted beneath an anvil, but has to leave before he gets the chance because Basil arrived fifteen minutes later than Ratigan expected.
* [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] in ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}}''. The Duke of Weaseltown (IT'S WESELTON!) can't justify sending his men out to kill Elsa for witchcraft until after it looks like she did something to Anna, because, y'know, offing another country's queen is a big deal (ice powers notwithstanding). When the "rescue group" finds her, though, Hans, being the NiceGuy he is, tries to peacefully keep Elsa and the soldiers from killing each other. When he takes her prisoner later, even though everyone thinks that killing her will stop the eternal winter, he still promises to try to save her. [[spoiler:We then get a ''very'' nasty justification. He just saved Elsa to continue to uphold his façade of being a kind, gentle man. In reality, he intended to murder her from the start so he could marry Anna and be king. It was only a question of when he'd do it and, by waiting until he could frame Elsa for Anna's death, he could kill her, take the throne, and look heroic the entire time.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{The Lion King|1994}}'':
** Scar really should have known better than to trust [[CoDragons the Hyenas]] to kill Simba. Also, whispering to Simba that he indeed killed Mufasa wasn't too bright, as it led to Simba's HeroicSecondWind.
** On the Hyenas' side, when Scar orders them to go after Simba after Mufasa's death, Simba escapes through a bunch of brambles and into the desert; the Hyenas refuse to pursue him through said brambles, believing that Simba is as good as dead in the desert. To be fair, Simba ''would'' have died [[SpannerInTheWorks if Timon and Pumbaa hadn't found him]].
* Throughout ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsRainbowRocks'' the Dazzlings have Canterlot High in the palm of their hands due to how smart they were, and ultimately manages to regain their lost power. Victory really is within their grasp, but after they knocks down the Rainbooms during the final showdown, they suddenly stop and stand still floating above their foes instead of trying to finish them off while they are down, which gives the Rainbooms the opportunity to get back up and counterattack with the aid of Sunset Shimmer. By the time they do decide to attack it is already too late and the heroes' counterspell is cast, freeing everyone from their control and summoning their alicorn avatar to destroy their magic pendants.
* ''WesternAnimation/MickeyDonaldGoofyTheThreeMusketeers'' has Pete doing this to Mickey. This is notable in that he averts this with WesternAnimation/{{Goofy}} and WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck, who he flat out attempts to kill.

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]
* In ''Film/TheExpendables2'', Vilain captures the entire team of Expendables and lets almost all of them go for no apparent reason. The only one he kills is the youngest and most inexperienced member.
* Justified in the same fashion in ''Film/TrueLies'', where Arnold Schwarzenegger's character Harry Tasker is captured alive so that he can document for the authorities that the terrorists are capable of carrying out their threat, and afterward when they intend to torture him since he's an American spy who most likely has some valuable information in his head.
* Spoofed and lampshaded in the ''Film/AustinPowers'' movies, where Scott Evil is quite offended by Dr. Evil's insistence on dining with his titular arch-nemesis, instead of shooting him in the head on sight.
** In the first movie, Dr. Evil has Austin and Vanessa Kensington on an "unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism" over a pit of mutant seabass. (He wanted sharks with [[SlowLaser Frickin' Laser Beams]] attached to their heads, but [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome his organization couldn't clear up the red tape]].) Right after that, Dr. Evil refuses to watch, just assuming that it's all going to go to plan. Scott lampshades the ridiculousness of it, saying that there's a gun in his room, and it would only take seconds to shoot them. Dr. Evil then remarks that Scott just doesn't get it.
** In the second movie, Dr. Evil has Austin and Felicity Shagwell over a pit of molten lava. Austin concocts a crazy scheme to try and escape, but Felicity just flashes her boobs at the guard, and they escape. Notably, soon after this, Dr. Evil does order his guards to just shoot Austin, but Austin kills them all first.
** In the third movie, Dr. Evil tries to kill Austin's father Nigel Powers with the classic "cutting in half with a laser beam" schtick, but it moves so slow that Nigel has time for some CasualDangerDialogue.
* Subverted in the 1997 movie version of ''Film/LeBossu''. After a long sword fight, the hero gets cornered by some soldiers and the PsychoForHire. From what we have seen earlier, it will be difficult, but possible for him to escape. At this moment, the villain, exasperated by the long fight, steps up to the Psycho for Hire, draws his gun, asks why they can't do it "quick, modern and effective" and shoots the hero, who only survives because of his PlotArmor.
* In ''Film/SherlockHolmesAndTheSecretWeapon'', Professor Moriarty originally intends to kill Holmes off quickly, but Holmes goads him into coming up with something "more creative," giving an example himself of the sort of death trap he would use if he had Moriarty at his mercy. Moriarty decides to prove his superior intelligence and creativity by... using the exact idea that Holmes just came up with! He does at least stick around to watch the death trap in action, and prepares to shoot Holmes when he decides it's taking too long; but he waits a bit longer than he should have, and Watson rescues Holmes JustInTime.
* In Creator/TimBurton's ''Film/{{Sleepy Hollow|1999}}'', [[spoiler:Katrina's stepmother]] has Katrina unconscious, isolated, and is armed with a pistol. Also, everyone believes [[spoiler:the stepmother is dead]], so no one would come looking for her later. Rather than just shooting Katrina, she decides to spend a lot of time [[spoiler:summoning the Headless Horseman]] to do the job, giving Katrina plenty of time to wake up and run away (though granted [[spoiler:the stepmother]] is hardly concerned when Katrina escapes, probably as she figures she's dead soon anyway).
* Annoyingly present in ''Film/TerminatorSalvation'', when after luring John Connor into the heart of its main base, Skynet sends a single unarmed T-800 to dispatch our hero. Yeah. In a base probably full of hundreds of killer robots with guns, Skynet decides to send ONE unarmed unit to kill the hero. And it doesn't bother to send more armed killer robots after the fight drags out, with Connor getting backed up by Cyborg Marcus. Somewhat justified that the T-800 ''DID'' manage to critically wound John and if Marcus hadn't volunteered for a heart transplant, John probably would have died. Skynet doesn't even seem concerned when the fight spills into the T-800 assembly line, where countless Terminator power cores (I.E. easily set off miniature nuclear devices) lay for the humans to jury rig into a bomb that will destroy the entire base if they manage to defeat that lone T-800 you sent to kill them.
* In ''Film/TheLastDragon'', media-obsessed villain Eddie Arkadian first plays this trope straight, stopping a minion from plugging the hero during a big staged fight because it would ruin "the show". But then at the end of the movie when the show is "over", he whips out his own gun, gives a short sneering speech about "all this kung-fu crap", and fires. [[spoiler: The hero catches the bullet in his teeth.]]
* In ''Film/QuigleyDownUnder'', Quigley has rejected Marston's offer to hire him to kill the local aborigines. Marston has his goons beat him into unconsciousness. It would be easy to simply shoot Quigley in the head, bury him in a shallow grave, and tell the British soldiers that he went back to port. But that would mean the movie would only be a half-hour long, so Marston decides to have his men take him into the middle of the Australian desert and leave him to die of exposure. Inevitably, this backfires spectacularly. As if that wasn't enough, he captures Quigley AGAIN, decides he's going to beat him in an Old West style quickdraw, and gives the man a fully-loaded pistol. Fortunately, Quigley never much cared for pistols...
* In ''Film/SupermanTheMovie'', Comicbook/LexLuthor has Superman incapacitated by Kryptonite and unable to get out of his swimming pool. Then he leaves him, expecting him to die -- even though he just learned that his girlfriend's mother lives in the town that one of his bombs is about to destroy. Somehow, he does not see her betrayal coming. He does this ''again'' in ''Film/SupermanReturns''. He seems to think he's done a better job by actually shanking Superman with a Kryptonite shard and throwing him into the sea believing this time he would be as good as dead, but it just gives Comicbook/{{Lois|Lane}} a chance to find and rescue him.
* In a non-lethal example, in the final face-off in ''Film/EightMile'', Papa Doc makes the grave, and [[IdiotBall just plain stupid]] mistake of letting B. Rabbit go first. Big mistake, as it lets Rabbit take away every single possible verbal weapon Doc might have used against his opponent, thus losing him the battle.
%%* Leroy and [[spoiler: Roger]] in ''Film/MysteryTeam.'' Justified in that the heroes are kids.
* In ''Film/TheWolfOfWallStreet'', Belfort invites Agent Denham to see him on his yacht, complete with ALadyOnEachArm, and he even boasts of putting on an act as a "bond villain". He then behaves just like one, by offering to bribe Denham and boasting of his PaidHarem while BeingGoodSucks. As Belfort's lawyer notes his invitation to Denham to see him in yacht is a really stupid thing to do, since it increased the FBI's focus on him and on the operations that he's trying to hide.
* Simon in ''Film/DieHardWithAVengeance'' handcuffs [[TheHero John McClane]] and [[SideKick Zeus]] to a bomb on a ship and leaves them to die, instead of shooting them and blowing up the ship after.
* After John's cover is blown in ''Stone Cold'', the bad guys put him into a chopper (which is vital part of their EvilPlan) where they plan to strap him with explosives and then drop him on unsuspecting cops below. He gets loose, some other guy gets blown to bits mid-air instead and the chopper crashes.
* Had Bane chosen to end Batman's life in their first confrontation in ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'', he and [[spoiler:Talia al Ghul]] would have succeeded in their plan to destroy Gotham City. Batman even asks Bane in prison when he first woke up: "Why don't you just kill me?" to which Bane replies, "You don't fear death. You welcome it. Your punishment must be more ''severe''." Later, [[spoiler:Talia]] monologues at length to Bruce about how much better revenge is when it's done slowly, giving the heroes enough time to [[spoiler:block her remote triggering of a nuclear bomb]]. Bruce lampshades this shortly after, responding, "maybe the slow knife was ''too slow''." Once [[spoiler:Talia]] leaves Bane, having [[TaughtByExperience learned his lesson]], he ignores her order to let him live and tries to kill him then and there; only Comicbook/{{Catwoman}}'s BigDamnHeroes arrival saves him. The villains do have a justification of sorts, since [[spoiler:torturing Batman for revenge was actually their main objective -- they do want to destroy the city as well, but it's secondary to that]].
* Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse:
** At the start of ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'', ComicBook/ScarletWitch gets the drop on Tony, but instead of just using her powers to kill him (or hell, even just bashing him over the head with a heavy object), she lets him go so that he can create ComicBook/{{Ultron}}, reasoning that the Avengers will eventually tear themselves apart over this. A deleted scene even has ComicBook/{{Quicksilver}} angrily chastise her for letting Tony go after the two of them had spent ''years'' trying to find a way to kill him for what he did to their family.
** Ultron himself is guilty of this at several points, most notably when he keeps Comicbook/BlackWidow alive just so he can monologue to her. Although at one point Ultron lures Tony into thinking he's going to spiel about his grand plans before just ending the conversation and initiating the fight instead.
** In ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}'', Comicbook/ErikKillmonger overpowers T'Challa during their duel for the throne of Wakanda, but simply tosses him over the waterfall instead of killing him directly. This allows T'Challa to return later in the film and defeat Killmonger.
* In ''Film/WildWildWest'', after Loveless captures West and Gordon, he fits their necks with the blade-attracting magnets that the professor in the opening was also killed with. Then he leaves before ensuring their demise.
* The villains twice have our heroine helpless in their power in ''Film/TheLongKissGoodnight'', and fail to just shoot her. The first time is justified by their need to interrogate her in order to learn what she knows of their plans, but despite them knowing how dangerous she is, they leave only one guy to handle her and she easily kills him and escapes. The second time, full on Bond Villain Stupidity kicks in as the bad guys fully describe their evil scheme to her then leave her LockedInAFreezer while they take her partner out and debate whether to shoot or stab him. They don't have time as she manages to blow up the building, [[CrazyPrepared having filled her daughter's dolly with gasoline]] just in case she needed to set stuff on fire.
%% * In ''Film/{{Avatar}}'', the humans exhibit this brand of stupidity. The whole point of the plot is how the [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything White Man]]... oops, [[HumansAreWhite human race as such]]... is willing to kill women and children purely for greed ([[SarcasmMode completely unlike]] [[NobleSavage typical hunter-gatherer societies]]). But... {{Unobtainium}} is a rock. Rocks survive saturation bombing. If the humans are so evil, they would just bomb everything around the tree, then scoop up the slightly blackened ''rocks''. The Na'vi would never have a chance to try RockBeatsLaser, they'd be too busy burning and suffocating. A modern military only puts boots on the ground when it's trying to ''minimize'' civilian casualties (or at the very least, subdue a population it prefers ''not'' to simply kill wholesale). Except that Plan A was in fact to minimize civilian casualties to avoid bad PR, hence the eponymous Avatar program and its [[GoingNative unforeseen consequences]]. When that failed, the RDA just decides to destroy the Na'vi settlement on a thin justification and call it a day.
* In ''Film/{{Flash Gordon|1980}}'', Ming the Merciless(!) disembarks onto the Hawkmen's floating city (evacuated except for Flash) and has a conversation with Flash, offering him a kingdom of Mongo to rule for himself. After Flash refuses, instead of simply ordering his bodyguards to dispatch the hero, Ming leaves and has his ship's guns blast the city into oblivion. While the city is reeling from the blasts, Flash conveniently falls into a hole where he discovers a rocket cycle.
* ''Film/KingsmanTheSecretService'':
** Played with. Valentine knows when to be practical. He simply shoots [[spoiler:Harry]] in the head after a minimal exchange, lampshading his lack of this trait. That said, he does describe enough of his plan before [[spoiler:killing Harry]], which was broadcast via his glasses to the Kingsman, to allow them to figure out the rest of it.
** [[spoiler:Unlike Valentine, who refuses to abide by the cliches of classic TuxedoAndMartini villains, Arthur does not appear to have paid much attention to them, as he [[JustBetweenYouAndMe explains]] the EvilPlan shortly before his death and falls for a PoisonedChaliceSwitcheroo. The victory of the heroes largely relied upon Arthur's lack of foresight.]]
* ''Film/DeathWarrant'': Almost immediately after [[SerialKiller the Sandman]] arrives in the prison, he has his admirers gang up on [[Creator/JeanClaudeVanDamme Burke]] in a surprise attack to string him up and kill him. Then the Sandman suddenly decides to let Burke go so he "won't know when it's coming", despite having just achieved exactly that.
* In ''Film/JupiterAscending'', [[spoiler:Titus vents Caine into the vacuum of space in an attempt to kill him, but leaves him his jet boots and allows him to kick a crate filled with instant-space suits that get vented along with him, thus allowing Caine to survive until the Aegis arrive to rescue him. Not only was it a sloppy attempt to murder him, it was also completely unnecessary, as there was nothing Caine could do to thwart Titus when he was merely imprisoned]].
* Done no fewer than three times with the Bride over the course of ''Film/KillBill''
** In Vol. 1, after getting it very close to right the first time by shooting [[spoiler: Beatrix]] in the head, Bill calls off Elle's attempt to kill her while comatose after she unexpectedly survives.
** In Vol. 2, she is injured and disabled relatively easily, but rather than kill her on the spot, [[spoiler: Budd]] chooses to bury her alive, giving her the chance to dig her way out and come back for seconds. Subverted in that [[spoiler:Budd is [[TheAtoner completely consumed with guilt over his past actions]] and figured that it's ''right'' that she escapes his trap and comes to kill him. Also subverted in how Budd is already dead by the time she gets to him, as Elle took advantage of her apparent death to kill him]].
** Later in Vol. 2, Bill has her at his mercy for quite some period of time but doesn't kill her. Partly justified in that instance in that he wanted information from her; there's also an implication that he (like Budd) is not actually that bothered about living through the experience.
* ''Film/DrMabuseTheGambler'': Mabuse never tries to kill von Wenk by simple, efficient methods. This leads to his downfall.
* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
** ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'': Jabba the Hutt meets his downfall thanks to a hefty dose of this. After Luke Skywalker makes it clear that he intends to spring Han Solo from his clutches, and successfully manages to kill Jabba's prized Rancor ''while completely unarmed'', for some reason Jabba thinks it's a good idea to fly Luke and his whole posse of allies out into the middle of the desert to stage an elaborate execution at the pit of the great Sarlacc. Mind you, this is ''after'' he catches Leia trying to free Han while in disguise as the bounty hunter Boussh, and after he probably should have guessed that Chewbacca ([[ISurrenderSuckers who got in under the guise of being Leia's prisoner]]) was part of some kind of rescue plan. He doesn't even think to cuff Luke's hands before trying to feed him to the Sarlacc. Surprise, surprise: Luke and co. manage to stage an uprising and escape together.
** ''Film/TheForceAwakens'': Because he's freaked out, Kylo decides that leaving Rey in a room with one stormtrooper is a great idea, despite the fact that he just learned she can use the Force, her powers are rapidly growing, and she has a knack for imitating Force powers. Like Ren's own mind powers.
** ''Film/TheLastJedi'': Despite clearly being able to kill Rey himself, Supreme Leader Snoke [[IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten orders Kylo Ren to do it to demonstrate his conviction and loyalty]]. [[spoiler:Kylo, who has forged a bond with Rey ([[NiceJobFixingItVillain thanks to Snoke's manipulations]]), [[TheStarscream instead chooses to kill Snoke]].]]
** Palpatine in ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'':
*** Sends a broadcast that announces his return to the galaxy which serves no real purpose other than removing the element of surprise.
*** When Rey confronts him, he tells her [[spoiler:he wants her to kill him so that he and the souls of the rest of the Sith can possess her and turn her to the Dark Side]] which she would have done anyway if he hadn't explained this. Result: [[spoiler:she refuses and the amount of time he wastes doing the "allow me to possess you or all of your friends will die" speech is enough for a reformed Ben Solo [[BigDamnHeroes to charge in to help her]]]].
* In ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'', after stealing the titular ark, Belloq leaves Indy and Marion to die in the snake-infested Well of Souls. Less than an hour later, our heroes have escaped the well, killed a bunch of Nazis, and reclaimed the ark.
* In ''Film/SpiderMan1'', Green Goblin knocks out and captures Spider-Man, but neither kills him nor takes his mask off to see who he really is. Instead he asks Spider-Man to join him, and amazingly, he just leaves him alone to "think it over" after Spider-Man turns down the offer.
* In ''Film/TrueRomance'', Virgil has Alabama at gun point and is about to shoot her, but she proves she is [[DefiantToTheEnd willing to fight back]]. This impresses him enough to put his gun away and instead [[JustHitHim start a melee fight]] in which Alabama gets the upper hand and finishes Virgil off in [[RasputinianDeath spectacular fashion]].
* In ''Film/XMenApocalypse,'' the title villain controls Professor X to telepathically broadcast his EvilGloating to the world, allowing the heroes plenty of time to know what's up and work out how to find and stop him. If he'd just ''carried out'' his plan (fully possess Xavier's body and boost his powers, allowing him to TakeOverTheWorld) instead of bragging about it, he'd have won. Of course, every fan who points this out also notes that it is ''very'' much like Apocalypse to lose because he put theatrics before pragmatism.
* ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'': Robin survives ComicBook/PoisonIvy's kiss and reveals to her he was wearing rubber lips. Robin is still sitting right next to Ivy as he says this with their faces still only a few inches apart, but instead of grabbing Robin and giving him another more forceful and less romantic kiss to kill him for sure she just glares at him for tricking her and shoves him off her throne and into the pond to drown him instead. Then instead of staying to make sure Robin drowns so her plans remain a secret she attempts to leave, just saying a mocking "see ya!" to Robin. It's like she was treating the whole thing like she was breaking up with Robin instead of trying to kill him.
* ''Film/{{Warlock}}''. When the Warlock retrieves the grand grimoire and learns the word that can undo all of creation instead of saying it straight away the starts ranting "I know the word that can undo all you have wrought!" giving Kassandra time to sneak up on him and inject him with salt water which is fatal to witches.
* ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'': [[BigBad Judge Doom]] might have succeeded if he'd killed Valiant when he got the chance, instead of [[spoiler:[[ForcedToWatch making him watch]] as [[CruelAndUnusualDeath the Dip]] slowly worked its way to them]]. That said, it makes perfect sense in light of TheReveal that [[spoiler:Judge Doom is a Toon himself; Toons are psychologically bound to RuleOfFunny, and EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor]].
* ''Film/JohnWick'': About halfway through the film, BigBad Viggo Tarasov manages to hit the title character -- whom he knows better than anyone is the world's deadliest and ''[[RoaringRampageOfRevenge most thoroughly pissed-off]]'' assassin -- with a car, knocking him unconscious. Had he simply [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim put a bullet in John's brain then and there]], it would have been the end of it. Instead, he has him dragged away for execution by plastic bag. No prizes for guessing how this turns out.
* ''Film/{{The Assignment|2016}}'': Dr. Rachel Jane, instead of killing Frank (possibly after extended surgical torture) subjects him to an involuntary sex reassignment and leaves him alive that way, with ample ability to track her down. Later, when her {{mooks}} catch him, they also didn't search him at all it seems since they miss his hidden gun which he uses to shoot them after waking up.
* ''Film/{{Total Recall|1990}}'' has an instance at the end of the second act which could possibly be intentional. [[spoiler:Vilos Cohaagen has just gotten everything he wanted: Kuato has been assassinated, and he has Dennis Quaid (actually Carl Hauser) and Melina under his thumb again, and he plans to reinsert Hauser's memories and personality in Quaid (with the bonus of Melina being brainwashed into his personal plaything). However, neither Quaid nor Melina are drugged for the memory overwrite, which allows them to fight back against a group of unprepared scientists with nary a guard set up to make sure something like this didn't happen, leading to their escape. What could make this intentional is that the entire situation, just like the entirety of the movie's second and third acts, may be part of Quaid's initial Ego Trip he purchased from Rekall, meaning Cohaagen's complacency here was "scripted" in-universe.]]
* In ''Film/{{Revenge|2017}}'', Dimi has Jen dead to rights when her attempt to sneak up on him fails, but instead of just killing her then and there, he can't resist toying with her first, complete with lengthy EvilGloating. It gives Jen enough time to grab his hunting knife and perform some [[EyeScream impromptu eye surgery]] on him.
* ''Film/{{The Mummy|1999}}'': After regaining his full power, Imhotep has the heroes completely surrounded by his mooks. He orders the mooks to kill the heroes and then... turns around and leaves. There was absolutely no reason why he wouldn't kill them himself or at least stayed for a few more minutes and made sure they were dead. Obviously the heroes immediately escape through a convenient manhole.

[[folder:Literature]]
* OlderThanTelevision: In Creator/JohnBuchan's 1919 UsefulNotes/WorldWarI spy thriller ''Literature/MrStandfast'', the villain, having finally captured the hero Richard Hannay, explains his evil plans at great length before placing Hannay in an easily-escapable situation. Buchan was arguably the first writer of modern spy thrillers, and the young Creator/IanFleming was a fan.
* ''Literature/BulldogDrummond'' (1920):
** Toward the end of the novel, Drummond is captured by the BigBadDuumvirate. Peterson points out that he has a talent for getting out of hopeless situations, and is all for killing him on the spot, but Lakington refuses to give him a quick and simple death, and insists on keeping him alive until they have time to subject him to something painful and drawn-out. Which of course gives Drummond time to escape.
** In the third novel, Peterson's henchman clubs Drummond and brings him, unconscious, to Peterson. When Peterson muses that Drummond needs to be killed, the henchman points out that they might as well do it there and then. Peterson, who by now has a highly personal grudge against Drummond, rejects the idea out of hand, in favour of waiting until Drummond has recovered consciousness so he will know defeat before his death. This gives Drummond time to escape, and inflict some nasty injuries on the henchman too.
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
** The novels ''Literature/MenAtArms'' and ''Literature/WitchesAbroad'' both explain that bad guys don't kill the good guys straight away because they want to gloat, and make sure the good guy ''knows'' he's been beaten. In the first book it serves to show Carrot as a Good Man because he straightforwardly kills the bad guy without explanation; in the second it gives Granny Weatherwax a NotSoDifferentRemark moment, since she rather likes people she's defeated to know about it as well.
** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d and neatly subverted in ''Literature/{{Mort}}''. Mort, Princess Keli, the wizard Cutwell and others being surrounded by the villainous Duke, who Cutwell correctly identifies as "not the kind of man who ties you up in a cellar with just enough time for the mice to eat your ropes before the flood-waters rise. This is the kind of man who just kills you here and now." Also played straight in that the Duke is willing to offer them life-long banishment (we know how well that kind of thing turns out).
* Unsurprisingly, this happens regularly in the ''Literature/JamesBond'' novels. Some (like [[Literature/LiveAndLetDie Mr. Big]], who has actually put quite a bit of thought into it) are smarter about it than others (step forward, [[Literature/FromRussiaWithLove Donovan Grant]]). However, the highlight has to be ''Literature/TheManWithTheGoldenGun'', when M of all people gets this treatment from [[spoiler:Russia's newest assassin, James Bond]].
** In ''Literature/FromRussiaWithLove'', the [[DirtyCommunists Soviet]] [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]] Kronsteen lays a complicated and near-perfect trap for Literature/JamesBond. Everything works as planned, all the pawns including Bond [[BatmanGambit go through their predicted moves]], and Bond ends up exactly where the Russians want him. But at the crucial moment [[spoiler:the assassin Donovan Grant -- an Irishman who hates the English -- makes the fatal mistake of engaging in prolonged crowing, boasting and gloating instead of just going ahead with his assigned task of killing Bond. This gives Bond the chance to improvise a [[IndyPloy desperate spur-of-the-moment plan]] which works, enabling him to kill Donovan and use the information which Donovan carelessly revealed in order to catch the senior Soviet operative Rosa Klebb]]. However it should be noted that the whole reason for the elaborate plot was to create a scandal around Bond's death that would embarrass British Intelligence - if they'd simply wanted him dead, they could have had him quietly eliminated any number of ways in Istanbul - making all but the final, spoilered, instance of Bond Villain Stupidity a necessary part of the plan.
* This is probably the defining trait of ''Film/DrMabuse'', a diabolical mastermind with a few self-destructive tendencies from a series of German novels and films. He has been called the direct forerunner to Blofeld. Observe the MeaningfulName: "m'abuse" is French for "abuse myself". Mabuse is his own worst enemy.
* Literature/ModestyBlaise novels:
** In ''A Taste for Death'', Modesty and Willie are captured by the bad guys. The head villain of the group runs on ItAmusedMe and insists on keeping them alive to die in some slow and entertaining way, despite two of his underlings (who have lost to Modesty and Willie before) advocating that they should kill both straight away.
** In ''The Impossible Virgin'', Modesty and Willie are captured by the bad guys. The head villain decides to keep Modesty alive because he believes he can brainwash her into a useful subordinate. He decides Willie is too dangerous and has to go, but picks an elaborate death in order to increase the psychological effect on Modesty; [[NeverFoundTheBody there is no body]] and it eventually turns out that Willie survived. Meanwhile, the head villain is done in by one of his own subordinates who hates Modesty and doesn't want her in the organization. The new head villain sets Modesty up for a gory death, and fully intends to stick around to watch the whole thing, but reluctantly has to leave to deal with an emergency caused by the returned Willie, giving Modesty a chance to escape.
** In ''The Night of Morningstar'', Modesty and Willie are captured by the terrorist organization they've been investigating. The BigBad's second-in-command is in favor of killing them straight away to make sure they don't cause any more trouble, but the Big Bad sets his heart on an elaborate scheme in which they'll be kept alive until the terrorists' next, imminent, attack and used in a DeceasedFallGuyGambit. Modesty escapes from her restraints and she and Willie sink the villainous plot.
* ''Literature/WarriorCats'': Originally, it was believed that the only reason Tigerstar doesn't [[TalkingInYourDreams go into Firestar's dreams]] and kill him was because he ''couldn't''. However, WordOfGod revealed that he ''can'', but he just ''doesn't want to''.
-->'''Iceclaw:''' If Tigerstar can harm cats like he can and walk in their dreams, why doesn't he just do it to Firestar, take revenge, and get it over with?\\
'''Vicky:''' Because Tigerstar wants a long-drawn out kind of vengeance, involving as many cats as possible, so that Firestar truly suffers. ...
* Happens in ''Literature/HarryPotter''. Since Voldemort likes to establish a sense of grace and grandeur into his actions, he doesn't just kill Harry and be done with it.
** Near the end of ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'', Harry has been disarmed, gagged, and tied securely to a gravestone. Rather than simply killing Harry after using his blood to regain his body, Voldemort not only has Wormtail cut him loose and give him back his wand, but insists on fighting him in a one-to-one duel and forbids interference from any of his Death Eaters, for no other reason than to prove, once and for all, that he is the stronger of the two. The final result of this is that Harry manages to escape and tell the world about his return (not that many people listen at first).
** Averted by ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix Order of the Phoenix]]'', where Voldemort tries to kill Harry immediately, only to be stopped by [[TheCavalry Dumbledore]].
* Uncharacteristically occurs with [[Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy Grand Admiral Thrawn]], usually one of the smarter people in ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends''. He has just betrayed Mara Jade by tricking her into revealing Talon Karrde's location, leading to his arrest by Imperials who will torture him if he doesn't hand over important intel, and then smugly mouths off to her face about it. Mara predictably goes {{berserk|Button}} and attempts to attack Thrawn, at first physically then through the Force. Both of these fail, leaving Thrawn with the question of what to do with a still visibly enraged and always emotionally unstable Jade. Instead of killing her, he allows her to live, and lets her out of his sight aboard his ship before letting her go. Jade then predictably hacks into the computer network of Thrawn's ship, uses it to find Luke Skywalker, and saves him. The next one-and-a-half books can be accurately described as Jade [[MistreatmentInducedBetrayal sticking it to Thrawn]] which eventually leads to his plans collapsing and his death.
** Thrawn had figured that she was in a hopeless situation; no one among her old smuggling associates would trust her. This was an error on his part; she was able to convince Aves (one of Karrde's trusted associates) to lend her a Skipray Blastboat and an ysalamir, which she used to retrieve Luke from Jomark (and confront the insane Jedi Master there). Once Thrawn realized his mistake, he was quick to take steps to limit the damage, but the measures (most prominently, the attempt to stop Karrde's escape in ''Dark Force Rising'' and the attempt to kill or discredit her in ''The Last Command'') ultimately ended up being inadequate.
* ''Literature/TheJenniferMorgue'' had a very… ''[[InvokedTrope unique]]'' case. Realizing that he is a mad genius billionaire with access to world-ending technology and a strong desire to actually use it, the BigBad [[spoiler: sets up a geas that makes the tropes of a Bond movie reality. He plans to make it so that the only person who stands a chance of thwarting his plan is a solitary British secret agent... and if one of those manages to get through, then he'll shut off the geas so that said agent is nothing more than a solitary man hundreds of miles away from any back-up who can easily be killed]]. Small problem: [[spoiler: despite all his precautions, the BigBad completely fails to realize by the end that the geas he thought he ended is still operating, even when he's got the hero and his fellow agent bound up and prefers to monologue at them rather than just kill them]].
* ''Literature/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe'': The White Witch could have saved herself a lot of trouble if she'd just killed Edmund as soon as she met him. But in this case it's justified, since Edmund did not appear to represent any sort of threat personally, and she had a reasonable-seeming plan to use him to destroy her other enemies. She was in fact undone not by a flaw in her plan per se but by Divine mercy. As Aslan points out, her knowledge went only back to the beginning of Time. She was unaware of key things that happened before that. At one point she ''is'' about to kill him, realizing that he's no longer necessary to her plans, and in the middle of sharpening her knife when Edmund (currently tied to a tree) is rescued. The only reason the Witch initially kept Edmund alive was because she learned he had two sisters and a brother, fitting the prophecy that two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve would reclaim Narnia, and thus hoped to get all four dead or [[TakenForGranite petrified]] and be done with it. Her plan almost did work at one point, when the other three Pevensie siblings seriously gave thought to breaking into the Witch's castle to save Edmund, but were talked out of it by the Beavers. She finally gives up on the plan when the three Pevensie siblings reach Caer Paravel thus making their capture impossible, and realizes that simply killing Edmund would stop the prophecy from being fulfilled. By ''that'' point, the other assassins she'd sent to kill the children failed, and were used to track down and save Edmund.
* Most if not all of the villains in the ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' series fall victim to this. Probably the most egregious are the Volturi. In ''New Moon'', the only reason they don't want to kill Bella is because she looks like she'll make for an interesting vampire. Instead of just biting her then and there and holding her captive to brainwash her into being a member of their guard (which ''Breaking Dawn'' says is what they want from her), they decide to let her go back to Forks, and according to Edward will probably forget about her for thirty years or so, giving the Cullens plenty of time to turn her on their own terms, or hide her. In ''Breaking Dawn'', their goal was apparently to use Renesmee as an excuse to kill the Cullens/force some of them to join the guard. Instead of quickly going to Forks and doing the job, they spend a full month heading over (thus giving Alice a chance to see it and warn the family) and bring a ton of witnesses, which means they have to put on a show of being fair and let the Cullens go. The witnesses aren't even necessary, since WordOfGod says that the vampires generally accept the rule of the Volturi as right.
* In ''Literature/{{Crescendo}}'', [[spoiler:Rixon]] spends the entire book psychologically tormenting Nora, before getting ready to sacrifice her for a ritual. Given how she's unaware and unprotected for about 99% of the book, that he doesn't manage to pull it off is ''really'' astonishing. Nora even asks why he went through such an unnecessary and elaborate ruse instead of simply shooting her in the head while she was asleep. The only answer he gives is that the sacrifice is an important moment, and he wanted it to be enjoyable for him. He then kindly holds off on killing Nora while she asks him more questions about his plan, allowing [[spoiler:Patch]] to conveniently show up and save her.
* In Literature/{{Dragonlance}}, Verminaard, the BigBad in ''Dragons of Autumn Twilight'', manipulated Flamestrike, a Giant Red Dragon mother grieving for the loss of her children in The War of The Lance, into guarding his prisoners' children because in her senility and grief she came to regard and love the human children as if they were her own.own, and would willingly watch over them at all times. When he had the Heroes of The Lance, the escaping prisoners and their children cornered and dead to rights, Verminaard somehow believed it was a [[SarcasmMode bright idea]] to shout on the top of his lungs "I will destroy the children!" within ''earshot'' of said Red Dragon who has come to love said children. Cue Flamestrike bursting out of her lair in motherly-rage to protect her beloved "children", turning the tide of the battle in the Heroes of the Lance's favor.
* In Creator/JohnLeCarre's spy novels, Karla (the brilliant and ruthless Soviet spymaster) knows how dangerous to his plans George Smiley is but does nothing about it. Even his mole "Gerald" admits as much after Smiley captures him. There are two more novels where Smiley defeats Karla again and again, even leading [[spoiler: to Karla having to surrender himself to the West]]. Karla could easily have assassinated Smiley but never did. He could have gotten away with it, even without a cover plan but (since Smiley had the most unfaithful wife in fiction) he could easily have made it look like a crime of passion like murder/suicide. However, Karla is not an active participant in ''The Honourable Schoolboy'', and in both ''Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'' and ''Smiley’s People'', Smiley is retired and not a factor as far as Karla knows. In Le Carré’s books, much like the real world (at least at the time) murder is a '''big deal''' and something that he would use only under desperate circumstances, such as those of ''Smiley’s People''. There’s no good reason for him to try and have Smiley killed.
* In ''Literature/{{Relativity}}'', a villain named Rasmas manages to trap all of the heroes in a typically elaborate deathtrap. Unfortunately, he's ''inside the trap with them when he springs it.'' [[SaveTheVillain Guess what the heroes have to do next?]] Justified in "Candy Corn": The villains are ''actually'' stupid (not just "Bond Villain Stupid"), but they don't kill or even unmask the hero because they want to give him as a gift to their boss.
* {{Justified|Trope}} in ''Literature/{{Pact}}'', where the laws of karma mean that declaring what you're going to do (preferably to someone that you don't nominally control) gives you power, and leaving someone to die in a complicated death trap lets you defer karmic responsibility for their murder.
-->'''Ty''': You’re telling me the universe ''encourages'' being the Bond villain?
* In ''Literature/{{Frostbite}}'', Isaiah had Christian Ozera, Mia Rinaldi, Rose Hathaway, Mason Ashford, and Eddie Castile captured and chose to keep them alive for days. This allowed them to escape and fight back against him. Leading to his death.
* ''Literature/MarcusDidiusFalco''. Justified in ''The Jupiter Myth''. The BigBad Florius manages to escape by taking Petro hostage and leaving him in a death trap so that the heroes must spend time rescuing him instead of pursuing Florius.
%%* Clove from ''Literature/TheHungerGames''.
* An EnforcedTrope for the Bene-Tleilaxu in ''{{Literature/Dune}}''. The Tleilaxu follow a code of honor that mandates that whenever they plan to kill somebody, they must always leave the victim some kind of opening to escape if only they're smart enough to notice it. This is due to their strong [[TheSocialDarwinist Social Darwinist]] beliefs, the logic being that if the victim is smart enough to escape the DeathTrap, then they deserve to live.
* Many of the villains in the ''Literature/AlexRider'' series fall victim to this; Dr Grief plans to dissect Alex alive in a science class the following morning, giving him a window of opportunity in which to escape, Winston Yu hands him over to his snakehead to harvest his vital organs with similar results (albeit with the justification that Alex destroyed a large amount of extremely expensive equipment whilst attempting to escape, and this will allow Yu to recoup his losses), and Desmond [=McCain=] leaves him to be torn apart by crocodiles. However, Razim of ''Scorpia Rising'' (the final book in the series for many years, before writer Anthony Horowitz had a change of heart and decided to revive the series) manages to justify the trope in an unusual way: his plan not only requires Alex to be kept alive up until a certain point, it is ''absolutely vital'' that he is completely unmarked and unharmed until then.
* Played hilariously straight in ''Literature/AliceGirlFromTheFuture''. In ''The Kindness Ray'' novel, the local villain uses the aforementioned ray (which have a side-effect to induce living thing growth) to create a giant monster, which he unleashed against the heroes. He never realized that under the influence of the ''kindness'' ray, his monster would be absolutely unwilling to harm anyone.
* Lampshaded and justified in ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', when Taylor is teleported into a burning building, shot and left for dead while gunmen surround the building to make sure she doesn't get out. Afterwards, Taylor wonders why the villain responsible went to all that trouble when he could have just teleported her to a bomb and detonated it. Later on, she outright [[spoiler:asks Coil why he didn't do this, and he admits that he attempted the bomb plan repeatedly, and even tried teleporting her into a vat of acid, but the teleporter was built by Leet and went wrong whenever a bomb or acid was involved due to Leet's power actively sabotaging him. Coil was forced to keep changing the parameters of the scenario until he found a combination that wouldn't set off the inbuilt malfunction of the teleporter, and then Coil ran out of time due to the narrow window of opportunity and had to go with the burning building plan]].
* ''[[Literature/MarketOfMonsters Only Ashes Remain]]'': The villain Henry successfully captures the heroine Nita with no one around to save her or stop him or his 2 henchmen from killing her, he fully plans to kill her, she's tied up and defenseless, he and his 2 henchmen all have guns... and instead of killing her when he has the chance, he leaves her alive and lures his apprentice and her love interest Kovit to the location to teach him a lesson about ConflictingLoyalty. You can guess how it ends...

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* A few ''Series/TwentyFour'' fans weren't too attached to the AffablyEvil Jonas Hodges in season 7, because of this trope. At one point in the season, Jones Hodges manages to frame Jack Bauer for the death of a man he tortured by tasering, but could've just as easily killed Jack Bauer in the process. A bit of context: the incapacitated man was lying in the hospital bed recovering from the aforementioned torture when Jack Bauer sneaked back into the room (Bauer wasn't allowed to see him, but had to [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique interrogate him...again]]). When this happened, Jonas Hodges deployed knockout gas into the room to knock them out for a few brief minutes, which he then sends some men to kill the tortured man, and then leave.
* ''Series/{{Batman|1966}}'': This was the setup for almost every two-episode cliff-hanger; the villain would subject Batman and Robin to some ridiculous death trap (being turned into giant ice cream cones, or giant postage stamps, etc.) and then leave. "Tune in tomorrow, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel."
* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003''. During TheMutiny [[spoiler:Zarek tries to convince Gaeta he needs to kill Commander Adama and stop screwing around with a KangarooCourt, as alive he's a rallying point for the loyalists. Gaeta, being less ruthless, and more interested in making Adam acknowledge what he's put them through with his command decisions, doesn't listen]].
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'':
** [[LampshadeHanging Lampshade hung]] in an episode when Harmony captures Dawn in order to get Buffy to attempt to rescue and then capture Buffy. Harmony's minions point out that they could just kill Dawn because as long as Buffy believes Dawn to be alive then she'll come anyway, instead of waiting until Buffy arrives to kill Dawn. Harmony refuses because, “that's not the plan, duh!”.
** Played slightly straight when the Master, instead of draining Buffy dry, drinks a little blood from her and leaves her to drown in a pond. Though she was clinically dead, she got revived by CPR.
** Angelus' entire plan throughout Season 2 revolves around this; all he wants to do is [[MindRape psychologically torture]] Buffy and the Scoobies as much as possible [[ForTheEvulz for kicks]]. This leads to friction between himself and the more [[PragmaticVillainy pragmatic]] Spike, who repeatedly urges him to just kill Buffy and be done with it before Angelus pushes her too far and makes her ''really'' mad. Spike's concerns are proven right in "Passion" when Angelus kills Jenny Calendar and leaves her body in Giles' bed, sending Giles into a RoaringRampageOfRevenge that leads to their hideout being burned down and Angelus being beaten senseless with a [[FlamingSword flaming]] [[BatterUp baseball bat]]. Of course, even ''that'' doesn't stop Angelus from dicking around and toying with Buffy.
* ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'' would make use of this sometimes as well. The most blatant example was probably "Engaged and Confused" when, after having two of his associates killed as they tried to kill the Charmed Ones, the demon [[TimeStandsStill casually freezes time]] (an ability he did not attempt to use earlier) so that he and his operative can have a conversation (in front of the Charmed ones) without them knowing about it. He then leaves without attempting to harm the Charmed Ones.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E2TheDalekInvasionOfEarth "The Dalek Invasion of Earth"]]: The Daleks restrain two Companions and then leave them to die in an explosion.
** Davros sometimes does this, however he is clearly insane. He also sees the Doctor as an intellectual and seems to enjoy sparring with him. And in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E6RevelationOfTheDaleks "Revelation of the Daleks"]], he implies he wants to turn the Doctor into a Dalek.
** Justified in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani "The Caves of Androzani"]]. Sharaz desires the Doctor's intellectual stimulation as well as Peri's beauty, but makes it clear that he will kill the Doctor if he can't bend him to his will.
** Defied by the Master in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E11Utopia "Utopia"]]:
--->"Anyway. Why don't we stop and have a nice little chat while I tell you all my plans and you can work out a way to stop me, I ''don't'' think!"
*** Although he makes just this mistake [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime later on]] with Rassilon, who has near-omnipotent technology at his disposal. Goodbye Master's masterplan!
*** The Master would often have the opportunity but wouldn't take it. Of course, as he says, "A cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about." And he sometimes tries to pull a WeCanRuleTogether gambit.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E1PartnersInCrime "Partners in Crime"]]: Just before being shot, the Doctor says "Wait wait, now hold on!" and his enemies ''listen to him and hold their fire'', allowing him to use his sonic screwdriver and a sonic pen he'd gotten a hold of to create a sonic wave to disable the bad guys.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E3PlanetOfTheOod "Planet of the Ood"]]:
*** The sadistic overseer Mr. Kess falls into this when the Doctor and Donna's cover is blown. After Donna is capture, Kess specifically orders the armed guards back so he can have the pleasure of chasing the Doctor around a warehouse with a giant claw arm instead of [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim shooting him]]. For bonus points, he says "I've always wanted to do this."
*** Justified later on by Mr. Halpen when the Doctor and Donna end up captured (again). He says that he can't risk shooting them because of the likelihood that the authorities are going to investigate Ood Operations due to what's been happening, so the two are left handcuffed where the Ood will get them, so they'll just look like all of the other deaths by Ood that have happened. However, the Doctor and Donna are able to get the Ood to spare them when they do get attacked by reminding them of the "circle" and that they're friends.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E3RobotOfSherwood "Robot of Sherwood"]]: The Sheriff of Nottingham captures the Doctor, Clara, and Robin Hood, only for them to subsequently escape. Late in the episode, after they uncover his secret spaceship... he puts the Doctor back in irons and dumps him into a different dungeon. This time, he and Maid Marian foment a slave revolt and destroy most of the remaining robots, setting up the Sheriff and Robin Hood's inevitable showdown.
* ''Series/FallingSkies''. In the final S4 episode Tom Mason and Lexi face against the Espheni commander on his ship, the commander knocks down Tom and is more focused in burning Lexi, while his back is turned Tom stabs him with a poisoned syringe that can kill him.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones''
** There's a rare heroic example in ''The Mountain and the Viper'', where Oberyn Martell gains the advantage in his fight with Gregor Clegane and has the opportunity to finish him off, but instead delays while demanding his opponent confess to the rape and murder of Oberyn's sister. Unfortunately for him, he gets a little too close to the downed Gregor and gets pulled off his feet, at which point his foe gleefully delivers the desired confession, while simultaneously crushing Oberyn's head with his bare hands.
** ''The Last of the Starks'' has both a villainous and a heroic example. Daenerys, her last surviving dragon and several subordinates come to the gates of King's Landing to meet with Cersei (standing on the wall above the gate), which ends with Cersei having Missandei executed. During this, Daenerys' group is within range of the countless scorpions (ballistae) on the walls of King's Landing. Cersei could literally just order the scorpions to shoot, thus wiping out the leadership and strongest weapon of her enemies on one go. Sure, it would be dishonorable, but since when did ''Cersei'' care about honor? And on the heroic side, Missandei is standing right next to Cersei and knows she (Missandei) is going to die, so why not grab Cersei and jump off the wall while she's at it?
* Subverted in ''Series/GetSmart'' when KAOS kidnaps Max, plants a Manchurian Candidate-style hypnotic suggestion in him, then allows for him to escape, making it absurdly easy - and he stubbornly resists escaping several times, convinced he's outsmarting some clever attempts to kill him.
* ''Series/{{MacGyver|1985}}'' uses this constantly, usually in the form of the BigBad securing the title hero (and usually a pretty lady) in some form of death trap that always has plenty of "useless" items lying around for [=MacGyver=] to use for escape. Lampshaded in the episode "The Ten Percent Solution", where a Nazi-lady tries to use a gas chamber on the heroes while a henchman ponders, "Why not just shoot them?"
* Patrick Jane from ''Series/TheMentalist'' has been saved by this trope quite a few times. Often involves HoldingTheFloor till [[TheCavalry Lisbon]] arrives.
* Morgana in the BBC series ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'' is guilty of so many examples of this that the only way the series manages to work is to provide the good guys with an equal amount of [[ForgotAboutHisPowers Plot-Induced Stupidity]] to balance her out.
* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'':
** Villains aren't renowned for their intelligence, but were most guilty of Bond Villain stupidity during ''Series/PowerRangersJungleFury'', where a constant stream of new villainous overlords continued to defeat the Power Rangers then walk away, only to complain later about not being able to defeat the Rangers. By about the 20th time this happened in a 32 episode show, it was very hard to keep caring.
** Of course, many fans point out that the Rangers could be accused of "Bond Hero Stupidity" at time. (for instance, during ''Series/PowerRangersZeo'', they could have prevented a ''lot'' of trouble had they opened fire on Klang and Orbus, a duo who were instrumental in [[MakeMyMonsterGrow a key part of Mondo's plans]]. The two were pretty easy targets who were always there, seemed to have very few fighting skills, and as such, a weak link in the overall chain that the heroes never considered trying to break.)
* ''Series/PrettyLittleLiars'' is full of this. A, despite clearly having it in for the all-girl team and having ''more'' than enough fodder to ruin their lives with, [[spoiler: she]] takes [[spoiler: her]] sweet, sadistic time. This gives the girls the leeway they need to try and find out who A really is. Most of the time this winds up getting them to fall into A's traps, giving A even '''more''' fodder, but it does work to their advantage sometimes.
* Happened ''all the time'' on ''Series/RobinHood''. The worst examples were Guy using a half-dead lion to try and kill Robin instead of ordering the fully-armed elite soldiers to just shoot him dead; and later trapping Robin in a dungeon that was slowly filling with water and then...wandering away mid-execution. Robin survives both attempts on his life.
* In the ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' episode "Arrival", two evil Kryptonians confront Clark Kent. They open a portal to the PhantomZone and shove Clark into it. At the last second, Clark grabs a piece of rebar and tries desperately to hold on as the portal sucks him in. Instead of doing something like cutting the bar with their heat vision, the villains just smirk and start walking away, only for Clark to FlashStep up to them, and [[HoistByHisOwnPetard shove them into the portal]].
* In the ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' episode "cold station 12": "Five minutes after we leave, every stasis field in this station will shut down, releasing hundreds of pathogens. I wonder which one will kill you first".
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' had an act of stupidity worthy of a true Bond villain. Commander Sela had captured Spock, Data, and Picard, and was within minutes of conquering Vulcan. Then, she left them alone in her office after describing in detail her entire evil plan. She didn't even bother to tell the guards to stay in the room to watch them.
* The Walking Dead: Negan has many opportunities to kill Rick and deliberately throws them away. Justified at first, in that he wants to break Rick so he has an example for the rest of the communities to stay in line. But later when he decides he's had enough of Rick's disobedience he still wastes time crowing and strutting before killing him. Almost immediately a 600 pound tiger punishes Negan for his arrogance.

[[folder:Pro Wrestling]]
* [[Wrestling/KevinNash Diesel]] Vs. Wrestling/TheUndertaker at ''Wrestling/WrestleMania XII''. Near the end -- Diesel chose not to quickly pin 'Taker post-[[FinishingMove Jackknife]], but instead do some long and shit-eating EvilGloating... at the guy known for [[PivotalWakeup Pivotal Wake-ups]]. Worse? When 'Taker did just that, and Diesel managed to Jackknife him again -- Diesel '''''repeated''''' said Gloating. Unsurprisingly, 'Taker recovered again -- wasting no time to make Diesel pay.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Radio]]
* Justified in ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' with the Dalek Time Controller. It can't kill the Doctor as doing so would disrupt the [[BecauseDestinySaysSo Web of Time]].
[[/folder]]

!!Examples:

[[folder:James Bond]]
A recurring FatalFlaw for many villains in the ''Film/JamesBond'' series is their refusal to just kill Bond in an easy, convenient, or practical way. It's gotten so ubiquitous with them that it's become the {{Trope Namer|s}}. The antagonists in any ''Bond'' movie tend to [[EvilGloating gloat]] about their {{Evil Plan}}s, but by then, 007 has already cooked up a plan B to escape and defeat the baddies. Examples in chronological order:

* In ''[[ComicBook/TintinAndAlphArtYvesRodier Tintin and Alph-Art'' by Yves Rodier, returning BigBad Rastapopoulos has several ways in which he could easily dispose of Tintin and Captain Haddock, before escaping. However, his sadistic need to give Tintin a slow, painful death for all the times his plans have been foiled ends up instead resulting in his ''own'' death, as he tries to hang them both, but the attempt goes horribly wrong and leads to him being thrown off a cliff.

** Oddly averted in ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix The Order of the Phoenix]]'', where Voldemort apparently has learned his lesson and tries to kill Harry quickly, only to be stopped by [[TheCavalry Dumbledore]]. However, [[spoiler:Umbridge]] plays this straight several chapters into the same book ([[HoistByHisOwnPetard as revealed later on]]) with one word: [[spoiler:"DETENTION!"]]

* During midterms in ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', Mineta and Sero are put in a mock battle against the Pro Hero Midnight (playing the role of a villain the two have to subdue or escape past). Midnight knocks Sero out easily, but not before he slings Mineta out of range of her sleeping gas. Midnight admits she could just camp the exit until Mineta runs out of time and fails, but her sadistic streak rears up and she gives chase, giving Mineta time to regroup and trap Midnight for the win.