History Main / GildedCage

** Zevran considers being an Antivan Crow to be this. You can be wealthy, respected and desired - provided you follow orders and never quite forget that you're expendable. Not to mention it involves TrainingFromHell starting at a very young age.

* The third mission in ''VideoGame/Hitman2016'' is actually called "A Gilded Cage"; one of the targets, Claus Hugo Strandberg, is a Swedish bank CEO who embezzled billions of dollars from the people of Morocco, and was busted out of police custody by mercenaries working for [[GeneralRipper Reza Zaydan]], Strandberg's partner and the other target. Strandberg's taken refuge in the Swedish consulate in Marrakesh, which has all the comforts of home, but there's a massive protest literally right outside demanding his arrest.

* ''Franchise/{{Danganronpa}}'':

** In [[VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair the sequel]], the trope is [[DiscussedTrope discussed]]. In his fourth Free Time event, Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu complains that he'd rather stay at a prison[[note]]as the Ultimate Yakuza, he's the most likely of the cast to wind up in prison[[/note]] than be trapped on Jabberwock Island ([[spoiler:or rather, a virtual reality simulator, but that's a long story]]). Hinata then tells him that it's an odd case, as the place has soft beds, a beautiful ocean and entertainment, a point Kuzuryuu concedes. Essentially, a gilded cage is still preferable to an actual cage.

* ''Series/InterviewWithTheVampire2022'': By the Season 1 finale, Lestat's sumptuous and comfortable townhouse is a suffocating prison for both Louis and Claudia. Lestat rules his household with an iron fist, and he doesn't permit either his boyfriend or his vampire daughter to depart without his approval, under the threat of [[DomesticAbuse excessive violence for Louis]] and [[OffingTheOffspring death for Claudia]] ("I'll turn your bones to dust"). In the previous episode, when Lestat intercepts Claudia as she was attempting to flee to New York by train, he even refers to their home as a cage: "Back in your cage, sweetheart."

* Rea in ''Manga/{{Sankarea}}''. She is restricted from ever leaving her estate by her OverProtectiveDad to where she is barely even allowed to go out to school to the point she sneaks off at night to scream into an abandon well of how she wish she wasn't born a Sanka. And when she starts to talk to a boy, her father even takes school away from her to be home schooled and orders that the boy she was hanging out with to be castrated. After this, she drinks a chemical that contains poisons plants in an [[DrivenToSuicide attempt to kill herself]]. Though it instead did [[OurZombiesAreDifferent something else]].

* ''Film/RepoTheGeneticOpera'' has Shilo [[EmoTeen Wallace]], a 17 year old girl who, due to a [[SoapOperaDisease blood condition]] she apparently has, spends her entire life inside her own home by [[OverprotectiveDad her father]], unable to leave. [[spoiler: It's especially evident how much of a prisoner she is when it turns out her Dad was lying about her illness and poisoning her meds, just to keep her there with him.]]

* Sun King UsefulNotes/LouisXIV of France's Versailles was like this, as a very comfortable prison for a few months of the year for all the nobles, including plays specifically written for them by Creator/{{Moliere}} and Goldoni, more than 1,400 fountains, and more. Versailles was unusual in that the cage was ''social'' rather than physical. The nobles were free to leave almost any time they wanted to, but they risked suffering social disgrace and losing political influence, since they risked not being around when the king dispensed status and patronage.
** The living spaces were infamously small for the grand majority of them, however, and the quality of the lavatories was abhorrent. Most of the fancy courtiers lived in rooms that made the modern student boxes seem huge, and shared the lousy toilets with dozens of their fellows.

* Despite its sinister reputation, the pre-Revolutionary Bastille largely fit this trope. It mostly housed political prisoners, and mentally ill nobles, and it was perfectly possible for a prisoner from the Bastille to get out and rise to a prestigious position in the court again, so the wardens knew well enough not to antagonize any of them. The prisoners got good food and decent wine, received an allowance, as well as anything their families donated them, and could use the money to buy anything they wanted from shops within the fortress that had as good a selection as in Paris outside. In fact, the only thing of which the prisoners were deprived was dessert with their meals and they accepted that, as prisoners, they had to be deprived of ''something'' to remind them that they were being punished. It was also quite a sizable building for its usual population of 20-50 detainees.

** The [[BadFuture Epilogue timeline]] has the Sky Ocean, the one good place in all of Discord's [[CrapsackWorld Crapsack]] VillainWorld... and the Sea Ponies don't even realize this, as they've been fed such a [[WrittenByTheWinners twisted version of history]] that they see him as a benevolent and caring ruler, rather than an EvilOverlord who only keeps them around because he enjoys their music ([[SadisticChoice and so the constant threat of wiping them out will force Traitor Dash to carry out his worst orders]]).

* One new faction type in ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}''[='s=] ''Synthetic Dawn'' expansion are "Rogue Servitors," {{Artificial Intelligence}}s that were gradually given more and more authority over their creators' lives until they eventually came to run the planet. They're not hostile to organics, they simply feel that it's in other species' best interests to let machines run their lives and keep them in pampered but efficient living sectors, and can't fathom why anyone would prioritize independence over such a blissful, carefree existence. And this is actually a game mechanic - Rogue Servitors house any non-robotic species in "Organic Sanctuary" structures, and the greater the ratio of these "bio-trophies" to robots, the happier and more productive those robots are. Though you can choose whether to enable migration controls for your bio-trophies, and if you don't, they will inevitably try going to planets that are inhospitable to their species (such as humans trying to live on an ice world) and/or planets that you either haven't gotten around to building Sancturaries for them on yet or don't intend to (because you intend to strip-mine it or turn it into a planet-wide power plant or factory to make the resources you need to keep the organics happy). If they end up in such places they just take up housing space and contribute nothing, and might even end up causing unrest among the robots by ''being unhappy'', so denying them free migration is the more efficent option.

* ''Literature/TheCampHalfBloodSeries'': Calypso, one of Atlas' daughters, resides in the island paradise of Ogygia, where she is served by invisible servants tending to her every need. What's the catch? She has no means of leaving the island by herself, and every so often, mortals will get stranded there, and the only way for them to leave is for Calypso to fall in love in them... after which they will ''have'' to leave and never come back, forcing her into a cycle of heartbreak over and over. The gods confined Calypso in Ogygia as a punishment for helping the Titans during the First Titanomachy, and she herself considers this a lenient punishment compared to some of her kinsmen who were imprisoned in Tartarus, yet Percy Jackson still considers her trial to be a cruel psychological torture. The cycle is finally broken when Ogygia's latest visitor, Leo Valdez, reciprocates her feelings, and ends up returning to the island after leaving it once.

** A bird in a gilded cage is the manifestiation of Yukiko Amagi's shadow in ''VideoGame/Persona4'', representing her frustration at having already had her fate of inheriting her family inn decided for her and tying her down to Inaba for the rest of her life. [[spoiler: The conclusion of her character arc has her reach the decision to accept this, because she does truly love the inn, the staff, and the town, and she doesn't want to turn her back on them just for the sake of being rebellious when she truly does want to stay.]]

* In ''LightNovel/TheFamiliarOfZero'', Luctiana kidnaps Saito and Tiffania and takes them to her home in an oasis. They are allowed to roam around the paradise. Since they are in the middle of a desert, they can't possibly leave without a dragon or vehicle to ride.

* During the Alfheim Online (ALO) Arc of ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'', Asuna's cage fits this description. It is a roomy, literally gilded birdcage, with a canopy bed, table setting, and gorgeous surroundings. The catch, though, is that her consciousness is trapped in ALO due to an executive in her father's company who wants her for himself.

* In the beginning of ''LightNovel/LordMarksmanAndVanadis'', Tigre is taken as a prisoner of war by Lady Eleonora's forces. He is treated as an honored guest and even allowed to practice archery, but is warned that he will be executed if he tries to leave.
* The ''{{Hentai}}'' series ''Yuki Yoru Ichiya Monogatari'' (English: ''Snow Night Stories'') is a about a concubine who tells her lord three stories ala ''Literature/OneThousandAndOneNights.'' The last story/episode is about a powerful nobleman who marries a princess from a small neighboring kingdom and promises to give her lavish gifts, but on the conditions that she never leave his mansion and [[MaritalRapeLicense satisfy his every sexual desire.]] The story ends with the young Ronin tasked with guarding the princess while she visited her father's grave, convincing her to run away with him by promising to not treat her the way her husband did.

* In ''LightNovel/HeavyObject'' the Cook Addition Islands are a series of peaceful tropical islands with a wide range of amenities. It's primary purpose is isolating particularly troublesome Object designers, but the military also uses it as a dumping ground for soldiers who are either problematic or embarrassing for the brass.
* {{Downplayed}} in ''Anime/JoseeTheTigerAndTheFish'', Josee is confined to her grandmother's house and rarely allowed to go on walks. The house itself is modest and the only person who take cares of Josee is her grandmother.

* ''Literature/FoxDemonCultivationManual'': Rong Bai has the best of everything in Tu Shan, his family's home, including a bathtub made of jade. While there he's also under his father's control, and his father does things like force him to choose between being whipped or killing Song Ci. Unsurprisingly Rong Bai describes Tu Shan as "a massive cage" and says he dreams of destroying it.

* In the third book of the ''Literature/GentlemanBastard'' series, Locke and Jean are thrown into a competition with an old friend of theirs. The friend, knowing exactly how the [[GentlemanThief two]] [[XanatosGambit operate]], decides to get them out of the way by knocking them out and putting them on a luxurious boat that is equipped with books and other diversions, comfortable quarters, a professional chef, and a crew of polite-- but heavily armed-- guards. Said boat is instructed to mosey them along the coast and back, returning them just in time for the competition to be over.
* ''Literature/TheHandsOfTheEmperor'': The palace is one for the emperor Artorin Damara – there is every luxury in the nine world brought as tithes, but a very rigid set of rules and taboos that allow him no privacy while also banning any physical contact with other humans.
* In the ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'' series, several citizens from the United States of Europe go to UsefulNotes/{{London}}. They are housed in the Tower of London and treated well (for the times at least), but they cannot leave. The characters are imprisoned there for several books.
* This is the entirety of the book ''Literature/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea''. As magnificent as the adventure is, Captain Nemo ''is'' holding Professor Arronax and his companions captive to keep the secret of the ''Nautilus'' safe. Ned Land certainly doesn't forget it.
* In the original ''Literature/BeautyAndTheBeast'', Belle goes to the Beast's castle to save her father's life. Aside from the Beast asking for her hand in marriage every day, she's got it pretty good; eating rich food, and being waited on hand and foot by the castle's unseen servants.
* In ''Literature/TheBeyonders'', Emperor Maldor makes good use of one of these. The Eternal Feast is a place where your every need is catered to and you are granted pleasures beyond your dreams. If someone becomes too bothersome and difficult to dispose of, he offers them a place there. Suffice it to say, few refuse and fewer ever manage to leave.
* In ''Literature/ABrothersPrice'' Cullen Moorland feels like he's in an, albeit mild, version of this. He sneaks into Jerin's room and comments that "even the air smells better" when he is where he decides to be, instead of where his family decides he should be.
* Creator/JohnCWright's ''Literature/ChroniclesOfChaos'': In ''The Orphans of Chaos'', Boggins praises the education they are giving the children and tells them they are lucky to receive it.

* In ''Literature/CodexAlera'', we learn that a LuxuryPrisonSuite that later contains an important ambassador was originally made for a previous Emperor's favorite mistress, who was accused of treason and imprisoned there. The Emperor personally interrogated her at least once a week during her captivity.
** Later in the series, long after [[spoiler:the Vord overrun Alera Imperia, the [[HiveQueen Vord Queen]] leaves one pleasant little town untouched, if surrounded by guards. She offers to allow any Alerans who surrender to live there in peace, so long as they are made sterile.]]

* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/{{The Dark Tower|2004}}'' novel, the Breakers live in a lovely, idyllic 1950s-esque town called Blue Heaven. At a distance, it resembles a college town, with the latest in movies, holographic sex simulations, food and drink. Their every whim is catered to. However, it is set in Thunderclap, a highly radioactive, toxic environment and is surrounded by electric fences and armed guards who will shoot on sight. Almost all Breakers have grown completely used to their privileges and don't care their mission is [[spoiler:destroy all of reality]]. They "get along to get along."
* ''Literature/DeltoraQuest'' The Shadowlord turned the royal palace into one of these over hundreds of years, using spies, plants, and illusions to sieze power. Since the barrier magic that keeps the Shadowlord at bay runs on the trust between the monarchs and the people, this weakens that trust until the Shadowlord can fully invade.

* On the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', Lord Vetinari has a special section of his palace set aside for an {{Expy}} of Da Vinci, the dangerously brilliant Leonard of Quirm, separated from the rest of the palace by a secret passage full of potentially lethal traps. The twist is that Leonard doesn't actually mind it, or even consider himself to be imprisoned, since his particular cage is filled with enough paper and ink and bits of things to keep his mind occupied the whole time. In fact, the first time he was allowed out, a few days later he returned and locked himself back ''in'', so that people who would turn his designs into terrible weapons could not get to him.
** It is strongly implied that this is not, technically, a prison, as Leonard of Quirm can apparently leave it at will, having designed most of the traps. It is not made quite clear whether Vetinari knows this, nor whether either of them consider it a prison or just let everyone else think that.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' [[Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]]: In the ''Literature/PastDoctorAdventures'' novel ''The Face of the Enemy'', the Master is locked in a compound originally meant to house defecting scientists. By its nature, it is quite luxurious, but it's also heavily defended and the Master has no illusions about living there. He even quotes the trope verbatim.
* In ''Literature/{{Dragonvarld}}'', the Parliament of Dragons plans this for Melisande. They're not willing to have her wander around free with her magic, and they want her to give birth to a similarly-empowered son whom they can train "properly", but insist that she'll be "given the best of everything". [[spoiler:It doesn't come to pass, because she dies in childbirth after the pregnancy plan gets implemented without her knowing consent]].

* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/{{Firestarter}}'', the rooms Andy and Charlie are placed in when they are captured by The Shop are very comfortable, with good food and television, and are comparable to hotel suites. This is no comfort to the characters, and it is remarked that despite all the luxuries, 'a dog turd covered with frosting is not a wedding cake; it is simply a frosted dog turd.'
* Creator/AleksandrSolzhenitsyn's ''Literature/TheFirstCircle'' is set in a ''sharashka'', the Club Fed-style encampments within TheGulag for scientists doing necessary work (See below under "Real Life"). Solzhenitsyn himself served out most of his eight-year sentence in one, due to his talent as a mathematician.

* In ''Literature/ForYourSafety'' this is the fate of all of ''humanity'', as the [[AIIsACrapShoot Groupmind]] removes all the humans to a incredibly comfortable ring world in orbit around the Earth. They're provided with every possibly luxury by an army of billions of 'morphs, but may never leave the Ring, since the Earth has now been designated a nature preserve.

* In the first ''Literature/{{Gor}}'' book the BigBad has an actual gilded cage that he keeps one of his slaves in.

** The training area for tributes. Luxurious quarters, beautiful clothes, five star cuisine, and a top-notch training facility to prepare you for your fight to the death. Simply divine. Katniss even says that it will be their "home/prison until the Games begin."

* ''Literature/IncarnationsOfImmortality'': In ''Literature/WieldingARedSword'' by Creator/PiersAnthony, Prince Pride and the Princess Rapture are kept in a lavish magical honeymoon suite, which they cannot leave. Their kingdoms wish them to marry for political reasons, but neither even knows, let alone likes the other.

* ''Literature/JamesBond'': Just as in its film adaptation, ''Literature/DrNo'' has Dr. No's ElaborateUndergroundBase be part SupervillainLair and part five-star-hotel.

* In ''Literature/TheKingdomAndTheCrown'' Miriam comes to see [[spoiler: Marcus' family home]] as one.

* In the ''Literature/SisterhoodSeries'' by Creator/FernMichaels, ''Cross Roads'' reveals that Henry "Hank" Jellicoe put the Vigilantes and the Big Five into these to keep them divided and unable to disrupt his plans to set up an assassination attempt on President Martine Connor and step in to stop it and make sure the Pentagon keeps funding him and his organization Global Sercurities. Fortunately, the Vigilantes and the Big Five eventually realized that they were stuck in these, and got out of them. ''Deja Vu'' reveals that Jellicoe put a reporter named Virgil Anders in one, because Virgil was writing a book about Jellicoe titled "Man, Myth, Monster", and Jellicoe objected to the "monster" part.

** When a plot to [[spoiler: put Princess Myrcella Baratheon on the throne]] fails, the royal plotter, [[RebelliousPrincess Arianne Martell]], is put by her father in a room full of comforts - great food, cyvasse (Westeros' equivalent of chess) - but servants who won't speak a word to her.

* In the ''Literature/SwordOfTruth'' series, the prophet Nathan Rahl is kept in one of these by the Sisters of the Light, and given every comfort, except wine, because a drunken prophet is bad news. Later in the series, Nathan Rahl escapes, and his Mord-Sith servants capture the Prelate, the leader of the Sisters of the Light. He then has her thrown in a grimy prison cell, refuses her requests to see him with the same answers she had refused him with over the years ("I'm busy and can't be bothered to come down every time you clamor for me!"), and gives her all the wine she wants. Later, he shows up to meet with her, acts as if her prison cell is a Gilded Cage, and then makes a brief speech about how all prisons, regardless of how pretty or comfortable they are, are fundamentally the same.
** The same is true, though to a lesser degree, of all wizards held for training by the Sisters of the Light. Every one is held by a RestrainingBolt that keeps them from moving too far away from the Palace, though with a leeway of at least several miles. And aside from a few hours of daily mandatory training, all trainees are given free reign of the city, with a nigh unlimited allowance to see to their comforts. The catch is that as they progress in their training, the students begin to lose more and more privileges as their magic becomes more dangerous. Thus, a vast majority of the trainees are spoiled [[{{Jerkass}} Jerkasses]] who do the bare minimum of training in order to not be promoted past the allowances they've become accustomed to.
* ''Franchise/StarWars'': In the [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse canon]] novel "Master and Apprentice" the Pijali monarch Fanry attempts to seize absolute power when crowned as queen. This fails as her friends turn against her as she'd rather destroy a Czerka starship and kill a bunch of innocent slaves rather than free the slaves. After she is forced to abdicate, the new Pijali government sentences Fanry to four years of house arrest, which Governor Orth says is a fairly minor punishment given that Fanry is being held in a castle.
* At the end of ''Literature/TailchasersSong'', Tailchaser temporarily tries out life as a pet [[spoiler:when he's reuinited with Hushpad]]. He finds it suffocating and bland. Tailchaser ends up [[spoiler:running off to the wilds again]].

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': The ''Literature/HorusHeresy'' series reveals that the Emperor had a set of twenty apartments built beneath the Imperial Palace on Terra to house the Primarchs once the Great Crusade was complete. While they're very luxurious and fit for the demigods, the obvious implication is that they're Gilded Cages to contain the Primarchs once they've outlived their usefulness as conquerors and generals.

* When on Earth, Beatrice in ''LightNovel/TheWeaknessOfBeatriceTheLevelCapHolySwordswoman'' is kept in one of these. Known as the Detached Magic Palace, it's a mansion within a large forest in Tokyo. She has access to everything she wants and is served by maids, but if she escapes, she is literally at risk of assassination. It's eventually revealed that she's kept there because [[spoiler:she looks like a younger version of the Sage, a major villain, and so was suspected to be the Sage's past self]].
* In ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'', [[spoiler: Morgase]] stays as a 'guest' of [[spoiler: the Children of the Light]] for a time. A somewhat dark case, as despite the appearance of civility, the captors were employing ColdBloodedTorture (albeit of a type designed not to leave lasting marks) in order to compel her to acquiesce to their political demands; it's almost certain that she was raped as well.
* In ''Literature/TheOracleTrilogy'', the Archon lives in a luxurious palace, showered with gifts and worshipped as the living god he is. He's just not allowed to leave the palace by himself, remains constantly masked and no one will speak to him. At least [[GoMadFromTheIsolation one Archon went a mite cuckoo from this treatment]], and that's without a [[HumanSacrifice crisis asking for the god to give his life for his people]].
* In ''Literature/MansfieldPark'', Maria Bertram feels this way about the eponymous estate. Living under the authority of a FantasyForbiddingFather and a mother who refuses to stir from home, she jumps at the chance to marry a stupid but rich man so that she can become mistress of her own estate and become part of London's glittering social scene. Unfortunately, she finds her dullard husband and his mother-in-law to be just as intolerable, and having been raised to be haughty and spoiled, can't manage to find her way through it [[spoiler:except by running away with the man she had ''hoped'' to marry. Unfortunately, he's an irresponsible rake who has no intention of marrying her]].
* In ''Literature/EndersGame'', after the Formic War ends, Ender is allowed to stay at a nice lakeside vacation house and even says he wouldn't mind staying there forever. The catch is that, by now, all the ''other'' kids have been allowed to go home and he's only there because the powers that be don't want to let him back into the world.
* In ''Literature/ADrownedMaidensHair'', Maud is adopted by three {{phony psychic}}s who want her to help with their séances and keep her existence a secret so the neighbors won't figure out their scam. Maud is forced to live as TheShutIn who isn't allowed to go outside except in their dreary walled garden, but she considers it a small price to pay for being taken from an OrphanageOfFear to a middle-class lifestyle that seems incredibly luxurious to her.

* In ''Series/ThePrisoner1967.'', the Village is a quaint, bucolic vacation spot, with comfortable accomodations and all sorts of idyllic activities to pass the time. It's also, as the show's title suggests, an inescapable prison, where you must conform to the mysterious jailer's ways or else suffer multiple druggings and various head games designed to break your spirit and turn you into a drone.
* In the ''Series/RedDwarf'' episode "Legion", the boys are held captive in luxurious "prison" suites tailored specifically to their respective tastes, so that a sophisticated being named Legion can perpetuate his own existence by feeding off their combined psychic energy.
-->'''Lister''': When I finally get round to writing my ''Good Psycho Guide'', this place is gonna get raves. Accommodation - excellent. Food - first class. Resident nutter - courteous and considerate. Psycho rating's gotta be four and a half chainsaws. Higher, maybe.

** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': In the episode "I Mudd", the Enterprise crew [[spoiler:and Mudd himself]] are confined to a planet where androids serve their every need while preventing them from leaving.

*** During the second part of "Chain of Command", Gul Madred offers a tortured Picard a choice of luxury or more torture. Had Picard taken him up on that offer, he would have had comfortable digs near the Cardassian capital, with all the food he would eat and opportunities to pursue his hobby of archaeology. But for all intents and purposes, he would still be a prisoner of Cardassia.
*** During "Face of the Enemy", Stefan De Seve, a Starfleet ensign, is arrested for treason for defecting to the Romulan Star Empire. He is kept in actual crew quarters instead of a brig.
*** "The Hunted" is about a planet, Angosia, petitioning for membership in the Federation when a man named Roga Danar escapes from their penal colony on one of their moons. Roga then reveals that he and his fellow inmates committed no crimes. They were exiled to the moon after they served Angosia in a war where, because of their planet's ProudScholarRace society, the men had to be turned into SuperSoldiers to survive the war. When they came home, their conditioning made it too difficult to reintegrate into society so the people of Angosia chose to exile all of their veterans to the lunar penal colony and make it as comfortable as possible. Picard openly states that a even the most comfortable prison is still a prison.

*** In one episode, Janeway's Creator/LeonardoDaVinci holodeck program is "kidnapped" from the ship, and enlisted by Tau, an alien merchant, to design things for him. Janeway attempts to convince Leonardo she is freeing him from Tau's imprisonment. Leonardo, as an artist from Renaissance-era Italy, sees Tau as a wealthy patron with unlimited resources who lets him create to his heart's content, and insists "if this is a cage, it is a cage of gold!"
*** In another episode, "Displaced", the entire ''Voyager'' crew is transported one-by-one off the ship and placed within a prison habitat environmentally-controlled to parameters that the alien kidnappers found would be a good fit for their crew. Afterwards, one of them shows up to tell them that they ought to be grateful...
--->'''Taleen''': I think you'll find there's nowhere to go.\\
'''Janeway''': We don't accept that. We will find a way out of here.\\
'''Taleen''': Captain, your lack of gratitude is unbecoming. You and your crew could have found yourselves somewhere far less hospitable.\\
'''Chakotay''': It's still a prison.\\
'''Taleen''': If you want to be miserable here, that is your choice. But since there's nothing you can do about your situation, I suggest you accept it. Gracefully.

*** In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2", [[https://ca.startrek.com/videos/exclusive-clip-the-star-trek-picard-finale Picard is under house arrest]] and his cell is Maddox's old room. He's comfortable and there's plenty of sunlight, but he envies the freedom of a synth butterfly.

* Life as a member of any kind of royal family has often been described as one. On the one hand, you have a life of luxury and privilege most can only dream of. On the other, you are expected to conform militantly to the expectations of your role, your every move is harshly scrutinized, you often have little say in your duties, your relationships and marriage are usually decided for you and you are raised from birth to inherit a position, regardless of wheter you want it or not.

* UsefulNotes/ElizabethBathory was sentenced to a lifetime of house arrest for the many heinous crimes she committed against the peasants of her country and the surrounding countries, only being allowed company long enough to have food and drink delivered. Even though the bit about her [[BloodBath bathing in blood]] is probably myth, it's certain she was vain, so leaving her alive to grow old and ugly without allowing anyone to see her while she was still youthful may have been AFateWorseThanDeath.

* ''Series/InterviewWithTheVampire2022'': By the Season 1 finale, Lestat's sumptuous and comfortable townhouse is a suffocating prison for both Louis and Claudia. Lestat rules his household with an iron first, and he doesn't permit either his boyfriend or his vampire daughter to depart without his approval, under the threat of [[DomesticAbuse excessive violence for Louis]] and [[OffingTheOffspring death for Claudia]] ("I'll turn your bones to dust"). In the previous episode, when Lestat intercepts Claudia as she was attempting to flee to New York by train, he even refers to their home as a cage: "Back in your cage, sweetheart."

* ''Fanfic/HopeCanBeAHeavyThingToHold'' has a brainwashed Danny Fenton stuck in an isolated mansion where he has every recreational need and an epic bedroom perfect to his tastes. But his captor Vald masters is very unstable and can switch from almost decent to abusive on a dime. Danny is also isolated from his friends and family and is unable to leave even as regains his memories. Vlad is the only perosn Danny is able to interact with, aside from the castles ghost servants whom he is not supposed to speak to anyways.

* In a third season episode of ''Series/NightGallery'' entitled "The Ring with the Red Velvet Ropes" newly crowned heavyweight boxing champ Jim Figg is abducted immediately following his winning bout and transported to a luxurious mansion in an alternate dimension. There he learns that he will be well treated but kept a prisoner until after he has fought the owner of the mansion (played by Chuck Conners) to determine who is the real champion of the universe. If he loses he will be transported back to Earth. If he wins he will replace Conners and gain the companionship of Joan Van Ark.

* Many humanoid containment chambers at the ''Main/SCPFoundation'' accommodate the subject’s needs in a way that helps keep their anomaly under control and they’re given things like books, television, and video games, with some of them even being given (limited) access to the internet. However, this doesn’t change the fact that a lot of them would prefer to be back with their friends and family and not locked up and experimented on.

* Many humanoid containment chambers at the ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' accommodate the subject’s needs in a way that helps keep their anomaly under control and given things like books, television, and video games, with some of them even being given (limited) access to the internet. However, this doesn’t change the fact that a lot of them would prefer to be back with their friends and family and not locked up and experimented on.

* Many humanoid containment chambers at the ''WebOriginal/SCPFoundation'' accommodate the subject’s needs in a way that helps keep their anomaly under control and given things like books, television, and video games, with some of them even being given (limited) access to the internet. However, this doesn’t change the fact that a lot of them would prefer to be back with their friends and family and not locked up and experimented on.

* Marika from ''Manga/TwinSpica'' lives in one of these, at least towards the start of the series. [[spoiler: The original Marika had it far worse, dying young with only one or two sorties outside of the cage]].

* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': In the episode "I Mudd", the Enterprise crew [[spoiler:and Mudd himself]] are confined to a planet where androids serve their every need while preventing them from leaving.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
** During the second part of "Chain of Command", Gul Madred offers a tortured Picard a choice of luxury or more torture. Had Picard taken him up on that offer, he would have had comfortable digs near the Cardassian capital, with all the food he would eat and opportunities to pursue his hobby of archaeology. But for all intents and purposes, he would still be a prisoner of Cardassia.
** During "Face of the Enemy", Stefan De Seve, a Starfleet ensign, is arrested for treason for defecting to the Romulan Star Empire. He is kept in actual crew quarters instead of a brig.
** "The Hunted" is about a planet, Angosia, petitioning for membership in the Federation when a man named Roga Danar escapes from their penal colony on one of their moons. Roga then reveals that he and his fellow inmates committed no crimes. They were exiled to the moon after they served Angosia in a war where, because of their planet's ProudScholarRace society, the men had to be turned into SuperSoldiers to survive the war. When they came home, their conditioning made it too difficult to reintegrate into society so the people of Angosia chose to exile all of their veterans to the lunar penal colony and make it as comfortable as possible. Picard openly states that a very comfortable prison is still a prison.
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'':
** In one episode, Janeway's Creator/LeonardoDaVinci holodeck program is "kidnapped" from the ship, and enlisted by Tau, an alien merchant, to design things for him. Janeway attempts to convince Leonardo she is freeing him from Tau's imprisonment. Leonardo, as an artist from Renaissance-era Italy, sees Tau as a wealthy patron with unlimited resources who lets him create to his heart's content, and insists "if this is a cage, it is a cage of gold!"
** In another episode, "Displaced", the entire ''Voyager'' crew is transported one-by-one off the ship and placed within a prison habitat environmentally-controlled to parameters that the alien kidnappers found would be a good fit for their crew. Afterwards, one of them shows up to tell them that they ought to be grateful...

* ''Series/StarTrekPicard'':
** In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2", [[https://ca.startrek.com/videos/exclusive-clip-the-star-trek-picard-finale Picard is under house arrest]] and his cell is Maddox's old room. He's comfortable and there's plenty of sunlight, but he envies the freedom of a synth butterfly.
** In the same episode, [[spoiler:Data's]] simulated house is also a nice place, but it's still a prison for him because his mind can't exist outside of it.