Playing the Family Card

Pretty much every culture in the world believes in the importance of family ties. Sadly, there a number of people, both in real life and fiction, who just love to pull the family card as a tactic to manipulate and guilt-trip family members into forgiving them, allowing them to escape the consequences of their actions, letting themselves be exploited, or helping them in their wrongdoing.

There are a number of ways this trope can work:

1. A toxic person will use this trick to beg or demand that a relative they abused or abandoned help them in their time of need.
2. An older family member might use familial relations alongside their age as a justification to force someone to obey their demands, even if the person they are trying to boss around is an adult.
3. A villain who's related to a hero might use the family card to convince the hero to show mercy, join them, or let them get away.
4. A liar might try to manipulate their relatives into believing them by asking if they won't trust their own family.
5. A person involved in criminal activities might insist that their family help them by asking if they want to put family in prison.
6. Someone who does something horrible to their relatives might insist that they be forgiven on the grounds that it's wrong to hold grudges against family.
7. Someone who robs their relatives or exploits a relative's generosity might use the justification that family should be willing to share with each other.
8. When it comes to jobs, lazy and/or unqualified people might use the family card to "justify" receiving special treatment in the workplace from their relatives.
9. If someone is related to a powerful and/or influential person, they will probably demand that their powerful relative use their power for their benefit.
10. Someone who cut ties with their family will likely use this tactic when coming back to beg for help.
11. In a conflict between biological and non-biological relatives, the bio-relatives might use blood relations in order to convince someone to side with them.
12. A lazy and/or parasitical family member might use the family card to manipulate a relative into letting themselves be leeched off of.
13. Hypocritical characters might deny someone as being family for one reason or another (such as disownment or a lack of blood relation) but have no problem calling that same person family when it's convenient.
14. An outside party might do this on a toxic relative's behalf, either because they don't realize how bad the toxic person is, or because they believe that family should always forgive and/or help each other.

Whether or not this tactic works depends on who it's being used on; a naive, kind-hearted, quick to forgive or meek person might easily fall for this line of thinking, while someone who's wise, slow to forgive, or has more of a backbone will see right through this trick. Characters who believe in the importance of family ties may or may not fall for this, with the latter believing that family ties has limits.

See also Heritage Face Turn. Blood-related examples are essentially attempting to exploit the Thicker Than Water trope. Compare Family Honor, which characters who play the family card might cite as justification. Overlaps with Beg the Dog and Crossing the Burnt Bridge if a character uses this tactic to beg someone who they hurt or cut ties with, Entitled Bastard if a family member feels entitled to someone's help, Because I Said So if a parent, older sibling, or older family in general uses their position to justify bossing offspring or younger relatives around, Only Cares About Inheritance if a character uses family ties to try and get a deceased relative's inheritance, or Taking Advantage of Generosity if someone uses family as an excuse to mooch off of a relative. Overlaps with Threatening to Cut Ties if a person threatens to cut ties with their family to manipulate someone. Compare/Contrast Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!, which sometimes involves a character using their family ties to get out of trouble. Contrast Honor Thy Abuser, in which the narrative portrays forgiving the abuser as a good thing.

Examples

Anime & Manga

• In Dragon Ball Z: Raditz begs his younger brother Goku to spare his life because they are "family". This is after he holds Gohan hostage and threatens to destroy the Earth. The first time he asks, Goku lets him go. Raditz then stomps on his ribcage incessantly, even laughing about it. The second time that Raditz begs for his life, Goku holds him down so he can be killed once and for all.

Comic Books

• The Avengers: Back in the 1970s, the team was briefly taken captive and held on "trial" by known supervillain Grim Reaper/Eric Williams, who was trying to ascertain which of the two Avengers- the Vision or Wonder Man- was his younger brother Simon. Upon going into a Villainous Breakdown upon finding that Simon is Wonder Man- but he's not human anymore- he electrocutes the entire team except for Simon unconscious. Brother then fights brother as Eric tries justifying his actions by stating that everything he did was to get his beloved little brother Back from the Dead, and not the "robotic imposter". Simon calls Eric out on his Self-Serving Memory, reminding his big brother that he used to beat him up when they were children, and now he's become insane and far more dangerous. Panicking as his brother advances on him, powering through all the blasts fired from his Arm Cannon, Eric tries warning Simon away from his still-rotating scythe, only for it to break against Simon's chest, enabling Wonder Man to finally knock his brother unconscious with a pulled punch. Despite dismay at the murderous madman Eric has become, Simon still apologizes to his brother after the punch, and ends the story by asking the rest of the Avengers to leave him alone with Eric for a while
• Batman: Stephanie Brown usually doesn't go for this one when it comes to her dad Cluemaster, but she made an exception in the lead-up to No Man's Land, letting him escape rather than leaving him to face the Huntress and her kill-on-sight policy.
• Wolverine: In one comic, Logan gets pulled into a feud between a Yakuza family who keep killing one another's members. One such member, a Fat Bastard named Gon, is confronted in his office by his armed brother, whom he desperately tries pacifying by reminding him of their family ties, only for his brother to dispatch him with a headshot and say, "Don't remind me. I don't need another reason to kill you."

Fan Works

• Banishment actually isn't so bad: Genma and Nodoka try to force Ranma (who they disowned) to divorce his wife Shampoo and marry Akane on the grounds of being Ranma's parents. Genma is especially repugnant in this regard, as despite claiming that children have an obligation to take care of and obey their parents, he never took care of nor listened to his own father.
• Dungeon Keeper Ami: In "Valuable Art", an older adopted sister says "Protect me, little sister!" to try and evade punishment for a prank because said little sister is the higher-ranking one.
• For His Own Sake: When Naru comes to crawl back to the family she abandoned, she tries to convince them to take her back by invoking family ties. Her family doesn't fall for it, as she not only cut ties with them, Naru also made several hurtful remarks towards them, despite them trying to help her before.
• In The Snow Queen And Her Seer, a crossover between Frozen (2013) and Encanto pairing Elsa with Bruno, Alma (a significantly more evil version than in canon) develops an intense hatred of her new daughter-in-law, and tries to murder her by sneaking a snake into Elsa's bed in the night. The snake fails to kill her, and afterwards, Alma appears before them, seemingly contrite, and offering some papaya and grape juice as a peace offering...only for Mirabel to reveal that the juice is poisoned before Elsa can drink it. Now no longer making any attempts to hide her hatred, Alma jumps over the Moral Event Horizon by shooting the pregnant Elsa to try killing her baby, and threatening to kill Bruno next...only for Mirabel to disarm her grandmother and turn the gun on her.
  Alma: Mirabel. Do not do this. You wouldn't do this. I'm your Abuela, your...your family.
  Mirabel: You do not know the meaning of that word anymore. (shoots Alma where she stands)

Films — Animated

• Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole: By the Final Battle, despite openly telling Soren that he hates his idealism and supports the Pure Ones because they believe in him like no-one else ever has, when he ends up breaking his wing in a Battle Amongst the Flames, and is in danger of falling to his death, Kludd has the audacity to cry "Soren, help me! Soren, I'm your brother!" Tragically, Soren's inability to recognize his brother's evil means he nearly does save Kludd's life... and then Kludd shoots himself in the foot by lashing out at Soren when he's trying to pull him up, which means Soren lets go, and the branch Kludd's clinging to with his other foot snaps off and, sure enough, he falls into the flames to his apparent death.
• The Lion King (1994): Finding himself cornered at the top of Pride Rock, surrounded by flames, and with a righteously furious Simba at his heel, Scar tries desperately blaming Mufasa's murder on the hyenas, saying, "They're the enemy, Simba! I'm your family!... You wouldn't kill your old uncle, would you?" Simba doesn't buy his uncle's lies for a second, (especially because he had earlier smugly admitted to the murder when he thought he had Simba at his mercy) but makes it clear that he's not going to sink to Scar's level, instead deciding to banish the Dirty Coward from the Pridelands. When Scar then tries sneak-attacking him anyway, Simba throws him off Pride Rock, but still doesn't kill him- but the hyenas, who overheard Scar trying to throw them under the bus, and have already been growing unhappy with his Bad Boss tendencies, have no such qualms.
• Recess: School's Out has a rare positive example; Becky Detweiler spends the film being blackmailed into driving her little brother TJ all over the state to secretly pick up his friends from sleepaway camp, in order to investigate a strange plot at Third Street School. After TJ is kidnapped, TJ's friends beg Becky to help them (through the Floppy Burger drive-thru where she works), but she has already had it up to here, not realizing how serious the threat is until Mikey reminds her TJ is her little brother. Justified, since TJ is a 10-year-old dealing with a real evil conspiracy, and he ends up giving up his leverage over her by the end of the film.

Films — Live-Action

• In The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader tries to get his estranged son Luke to go to the Dark Side by saying that they'd "rule the universe as father and son".
• The Iron Buddha opens with Xiao Tian-zun, the Big Bad who is then just a common criminal, caught in the middle of an Attempted Rape by the old kung-fu master Liu Peng. Xiao then pleads for mercy and that he will turn over a new leaf if Master Liu takes him in as a student, by bringing up his father's name and reminding Master Liu what his father did for the latter - Master Liu eventually gives in because Xiao's father did save Liu's life during the war. Everything goes downhill after a three-year Time Skip.
• Prince Caspian: Miraz, Caspian's Evil Uncle, has two moments like this in a climactic Storming the Castle moment by the Pevensies and their Narnian supporters
  • First, he initially tries talking down his nephew when Caspian wakes him up with a sword to his throat, though it's more out of sarcastic taunting him for not having killed Miraz already:
  Miraz: You know, some families might consider this... inappropriate behaviour.
  Caspian: That does not seem to have stopped you!
  Miraz: But you are not like me, are you? (chuckles) It's sad, really. The first time you show some real backbone... And it's such a waste.
  • He delivers another one of these to his wife Prunaprismia when she wakes up and tries warning Caspian away with a crossbow, right after the furious Prince forces Miraz at sword-point to confess to killing his father:
  Prunaprismia: You told me your brother died in his sleep.
  Miraz: That was more or less true...
  Prunaprismia: How could you?!
  Miraz: For the same reason you will pull that trigger. (he steps forwards, pressing the tip of Caspian's sword into his neck and drawing blood) For our son!
  Prunaprismia: No!
  Miraz: You need to make a choice, my dear. Do you want our son to be King? Or do you want him to be like Caspian here- FATHERLESS!!''
  Prunaprismia: NOOOOO!! (She fires a bolt that grazes Caspian's arm and enables Miraz to escape, before breaking down into aggrieved wailing at her husband's true malevolence)

Literature

• In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, there's a Pensieve Flashback to several trials conducted by the Ministry for Magic. In one of them, one of the villains says "I am your son". To which his father, one of the judges, says he has no son.

Live-Action TV

• The Beauty Queen Of Jerusalem: Other than Gabriel, who hates his brother-in-law, the Ermozas protect Ephraim from the British military and police. As we get deeper into the plot we see they have strong reasons, especially Ephraim saving all their lives during the 1929 riots, when Gabriel wasn't there.
  • Rosa is obviously the most loyal, since he's the only brother she has left after the Ottomans killed Rachamim.
  • Even though he set off the bomb that killed her best friend Matilda, Luna refuses to make a witness statement incriminating him. Instead, he confesses to free her from jail.
  • Rachelika smuggles him a gun to help him escape from prison.
  • Later on, Luna lures James into a trap set by Ephraim, ostensibly with the hope of trading him for Itamar's freedom.
• Dickensian: Throughout most of the series, Arthur Havisham has been a (reluctant, but still) partner-in-crime to Meriwether Compeyson in his scheme to seduce Arthur's sister Amelia into giving him the brewery she inherited from their father and take all the money left to her before abandoning her at the altar. By the finale, however, he finally decides he's had enough, and (with the help of Bill Sykes and Mr. Jaggers) coerces Compeyson into revealing his crimes to Amelia, including Arthur's own part in them. Arthur, being something of an Entitled Bastard and a Horrible Judge of Character, seems to think that despite admitting he was working with a con man to cheat his sister out of her inheritance, he'll be able to convince her to forgive him and their relationship to go back to how it was before just by reminding her that he's her brother. To no one's surprise, he fails: furious at her brother's greed and selfishness (and cowardice in not turning on Compeyson sooner), Amelia disowns him, orders him to get out of her house, and then descends into a miserable screaming fit of anguish. And seeing his sister fall into such a Heroic BSoD thoroughly rubs it in how much Arthur has let his family down: the last time we see him, he's standing on top of a building, drunk and bitter, and it's heavily implied that he'll jump.
• This appears to be continually done by patriarch Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones. In his own search to maintain and expand his power as an éminence grise manipulating the Seven Kingdoms from the shadows, he browbeats and manipulates his children Cersei, Jaime, and especially Tyrion. Trouble begins when Tyrion proves increasingly resistant to being intimidated and manipulated. He eventually murders his father after Tywin goes too far.

Theatre

• The Libation Bearers: When Orestes is about to kill Clytemnestra as revenge for her killing Agamemnon, she pleads for her lives on the ground that she is his mother, baring her breasts to show how she suckled him as a baby. He goes ahead with killing her anyway.

Video Games

• Duncan Young, from Criminal Case: Pacific Bay tries invoking familial ties with his sister Amy, a cop, after she and the player character (also a policeman) discover that he is the Night Walker, only for it to fail and ends with him behind bars.
• Evil West: Towards the climax, Jesse Rentier has to confront his father William, who has now become a vampire himself and William offers his son a place at his side, to rule as supposed gods. Jesse, disgusted by his father killing most of the Rentier Institute's agents earlier, including his friend Vergil Olney, rejects the offer, whereupon William decides to force his son to join him. The fight ends with Jesse lethally stabbing William. The dying vampire gasps out, "We could have... achieved great things, son." Jesse bitterly replies, "We did. But then you died." Enough of William's original self remains in the vampire to Face Death with Dignity and pay respect to his son's prowess before being dispatched with a headshot and Jesse throwing a match over his shoulder.
• In Far Cry 6, partway through the Montero Family storyline, General Jose Castillo, the commander of Anton Castillo's armies (as well as his nephew), visits his uncle when he's teaching his son Diego to shoot pigeons, in order to boast about his recent murder of rebel leader Carlos Montero (and snatch Diego's rifle when he misses his last pigeon just so he can shoot the bird himself, because Jose is a Psychopathic Manchild who hates his cousin). Anton is not pleased by this, telling off his nephew for murdering a man who 80% of his own soldiers used to work for, and so making him into a martyr and ensuring a ton of potential defectors. A panicking and desperate Jose pleads, "Uncle, I was trying to impress you! Por favor, Anton-!" But his pleas fall on deaf ears, and Anton punishes his nephew for his failure by having Diego use him as a replacement target for the pigeon he just shot. Jose survives this... but not what the heroes do to him later.
• Final Fantasy XIV:
  • Aymeric, the Heroic Bastard of Archbishop Thordan, believes that his ties to Thordan could help him convince the archbishop to reveal the truth of the Dragonsong War instead of continuing the toxic status quo. But Thordan remains unmoved and has Aymeric imprisoned in the Vault. At the very least, Aymeric's assumption that Thordan would be conflicted about sentencing his son to die for heresy proves correct, buying time for the heroes to mount a rescue operation to free Aymeric.
  • Haurchefant Greystone is the illegitimate son of Count Edmont de Fortemps, born of the count's sole affair. While Edmont loved Haurchefant and wanted to raise him as a trueborn son, Edmont's wife objected, forcing Edmont to disown Haurchefant and deny him the family name. Edmont's guilt over the decision makes it hard for him to say no to Haurchefant's requests. This is what lets Haurchefant convince Edmont to take in the Warrior of Light, Tataru, and Alphinaud as wards of House Fortemps, letting them find refuge from Teledji's Frame-Up job.
  • It's revealed in the Dark Knight quest "Original Sins" that Ystride, the crazed woman leading the hunt for Rielle, is none other than Rielle's mother. In "Absolution", the heroes attempt to appeal to Ystride's ties to her daughter to convince Ystride to stop her mad pursuit. Ystride refuses, having disowned her daughter for being born with her father's heretical blood. Ystride then declares that she will never stop hunting Rielle.
• Fire Emblem Engage: Lord Sombron makes for an absolutely abysmal father, who uses his parental status to force his kids into doing whatever he wants and believes that, as their father, he has the right to treat his kids like slaves. When they, inevitably, try to stand up for themselves, he kills them without any remorse, labeling them as "defects."
• Ghost of Tsushima: Initially, Jin Sakai's uncle/Parental Substitute Lord Shimura appears to be a Reasonable Authority Figure and noble samurai, but as the story goes on, his prejudices and stubborn insistence on fighting with honor gradually begins driving a wedge between him and his nephew. When Lord Shimura tries recapturing his castle from the Mongols with an army of common soldiers, only to get them blown up thanks to the Mongols using bombs against them, he doesn't learn anything from this, deciding to try again the following morning, because his soldiers are expendable, and at least they'll die with honour. Jin, furious at his uncle's callous attitude, decides to use a more pragmatic Ghost tactic of sneaking into the castle at night and poisoning the Mongols' airag to kill them all, even though Lord Shimura objects to it. When Jin goes through with this tactic, and Lord Shimura arrives to confront him for it, he is thoroughly disgusted by Jin's actions, and proposes an even more callous decision to try to spare his nephew from the Shogun's wrath:
  Lord Shimura: I know she (Jin's thief friend Yuna) drove you to this.
  Jin: Uncle-
  Lord Shimura: Renounce the Ghost! You must blame her for this outrage. (indicating the other samurai nobility behind him) Tell them... you are Jin Shimura. Loyal servant to the Shogun. My heir... (he pulls out a scroll bearing his seal of adoption) My son!
  Jin: (giving his Uncle a Death Glare) I am not your son. I am the Ghost.
• In Middle-earth: Shadow of War, when we first meet General Castamir, he seems to be a Reasonable Authority Figure who deeply cares for the people of Minas Ithil, especially for his daughter Idril. We later learn, however, that Castamir has lost hope of ever successfully defending his city from Mordor, so he decides to give over Minas Ithil to the Witch-King, along with its priceless Palantir. Idril is furious over her father's actions, and he tries desperately to defend himself by telling her that he values his daughter's life over being killed in defence of his city. This excuse does not please Idril, and afterwards Castamir finds out how stupid he was to expect a servant of Sauron to keep their word: when he reminds the Witch-King of the terms of their deal, the Palantir in exchange for Idril's freedom, the Lord of the Nazgul replies that "She is free to die with her people," and then smashes Castamir's skull with one blow of his mace, right in front of his daughter. And Castamir's torment doesn't end with his death- afterwards, the Witch-King turns him into a wight and forces him to continue fighting on his side, showing how turning traitor for his daughter was All for Nothing.
• Spider-Man: Miles Morales: Towards the climax, Miles ends up getting into a confrontation with his estranged Uncle Aaron Davis/The Prowler, who has ended up carrying out a laundry list of manipulations and betrayals of his nephew (manipulating him into joining the Underground so Aaron could use him to spy on Phin Mason/The Tinkerer, selling him and Phin out to Simon Krieger, and currently imprisoning Miles in a subway station. After losing the fight, Aaron acknowledges his mistakes but reminds Miles that they're family. All this does is prompt Miles to furiously state, "Family?! That didn't stop you from manipulating me! Lying to me! Fighting me! Being family isn't enough anymore!" Whilst Aaron isn't an entirely unsympathetic figure (his crimes towards Miles were born out of a desperate attempt to make sure he didn't lose his nephew like he lost his brother), hearing his nephew call him out for his selfishness makes him have a Heel Realization, and by the end of the game, he switches sides and sells Roxxon out in exchange for a reduced jail sentence.
• An (anti)heroic case in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. Nate's long-lost brother Sam Drake walks back into his life and tells Nate that he recently got out of a Panamanian prison and now has a deadline to find the treasure of the fabled pirate settlement Libertalia, or else the cartel leader who got him out of jail will kill him. Later on, Nate finds out (from the main villain, no less!) that Sam lied about his escape, and had been tracking down the treasure for himself all along. Even after Nate becomes disillusioned with his brother for luring him away from his family back to another dangerous adventure, Sam still tries cajoling him into continuing the treasure hunt, claiming that, being brothers, he understands Nate far better than his wife or Parental Substitute do- and when Nate decides to just cut his losses, Sam goes on to find the treasure by himself. Luckily, though, Sam eventually wises up and abandons the treasure after Nate narrowly rescues him from drowning in an exploding ship.

Web Animation

• Etra chan saw it!:
  • Akamatsu is the toxic father of Tokusa and Tsutsuji, who they cut ties with. Akamatsu finds out where they live via the city office, and demands that Tokusa and Tsutsuji take care of him on the grounds of being their father, which they refuse. Sadly, despite all of the abuse Akamatsu inflicted on them, Hiiragi and Yuzuriha don't sympathize with them, as they believe that family is always supposed to stick together and chew them out for abandoning their dad. When Hiiragi goes to Tokusa's house and demands he take care of his dad, Tachibana, Hiiragi's father, tells him that some people should be avoided at all costs, even if they're family, which causes Hiiragi to realize the error of his thinking.
  • Akane abandoned her son Kuroki and husband Tokusa to be with another man. Years later, after Kuroki has become an adult, she comes back asking to live with him. Kuroki refuses, as he considers Akane to be a stranger. Akane says that he has to help her since she gave birth to hive and raised him for eight years, to which Kuroki responds by saying he considers Yuri, Tokusa's second wife, to be his real mother, causing Akane to give up and go away.
  • Kuroki was neglected and abused by his parents as a child, and eventually ran away to live with his Childhood Friend Karin. Years later, after Kuroki and Karin have gotten married, Akane finds them and asks Kuroki to take care of her and his father. When Kuroki refuses, Akane responds by saying that children are obligated to care for their parents. Kuroki drives her away by threatening to treat her the way Akane and her husband treated him, which causes Akane to run away.
• Helluva Boss: In "The Circus" Cash Buckzo convinces his son Blitzo to rob Stolas's family by pointing out that the loot can be sold in order to support their family. To make matters worse, Buckzo says this after Blitzo expresses fear of getting caught stealing and while using Puppy-Dog Eyes, showing that Buckzo is using it as a manipulation tactic rather than any genuine concern for his family.
• MoniRobo: In every story involving toxic relatives, said relatives will always play the family card whenever they need the protagonist, who they mistreated, exploited, abused, or disowned, to assist them, which the protagonist will always refuse.

Web Videos

• Apple Texts: Pretty much every episode that involves an evil family member will have said family member using familial relations as a means of guilt-tripping or demanding the protagonist they abused and/or abandoned to help them. Said protagonist will never fall for it, and respond by cutting ties with them.

Western Animation

• Amphibia: In "Adventures In Catsitting," the Plantars reminisce about a time when their distant "Cousin Stanley" used his apparent ties with them to crash at their place. He was a big freeloader who constantly took advantage of the Plantars' generosity for months on end, with it even being implied that he's not even really their cousin. Eventually, the Plantars, understandably, got fed up with Stanley and forcefully kicked him out of the house without regret.
• Black Dynamite:
  • In the pilot "Trouble on Puppet Street," puppet-turned-pimp That Frog Kurtis tries to convince Black Dynamite to spare him, saying that he was a role model father figure to Black Dynamite when his real father abandoned him. However, it's all just a distraction to try and pull a knife on him.
  • In the season 1 finale, Black Dynamite's father Reverent Daddy Dynamite returns after walking out 25 years ago. He immediately takes advantage of his son's desire to reconnect, crashing at his place for free and using his influence in the black community to start fleecing people.
• Justice League: "The Enemy Below" has Lord Orm conspire to usurp Aquaman as King of Atlantis and destroy the surface world, which leads to him attempting murder on Aquaman and his infant son by attempting to plunge them into a volcano, forcing Aquaman to cut off his hand to save his son. When confronting Orm at the polar ice caps, Orm attempts to kill Aquaman telling him he's not fit for the throne, only for the ice to break under him and forcing him to hold onto the ledge for dear life. Orm begs Aquaman for help and calls him "brother" despite all that he's done to him, but Aquaman instead just takes back his trident and lets Orm fall into the abyss, seeing through the obvious insincerity and knowing that Orm will likely try to kill him again if he does save him (which is supported by a Freeze-Frame Bonus of Orm smirking when Aquaman seemingly reaches for his hand).
• Ninjago: King Vangelis, the seemingly benevolent ruler of Shintaro who tries to keep his daughter from going into the mines out of apparent concern for her safety, reveals himself to be the Skull Sorcerer enslaving the Munce and Geckles. After sending Wu and Cole down a trap door, Vangelis threatens to disown Vania as his daughter if she chooses to go to their rescue and oppose him, making good on that threat when she chooses to do the right thing. After Cole defeats him, Vangelis tries to appeal to Vania and justify his actions by calling her his daughter, but Vania isn't having any of it and orders his arrest.

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