These tropes are mostly about characters who have been (magically) imprisoned somehow for some reason.
Tropes:
Also see:
- And I Must Scream: Being sealed away for eons can be an unpleasant experience if the imprisoned being was conscious the whole time.
- Awakening the Sleeping Giant
- Brown Note Being: May imprison or be imprisoned this way.
- Caged Inside a Monster
- Demonic Possession (sometimes)
- Deus ex Machina
- Dug Too Deep
- False Innocence Trick: An evil being might have to fool people into freeing them by playing on their sympathies.
- Fling a Light into the Future
- Genie in a Bottle: A jinn is trapped in some sort of container, only being released whenever someone needs them to grant their wish.
- Harmless Freezing: When a person is frozen, it doesn't kill them and they'll be perfectly fine as soon as they thaw out.
- Human Popsicle: A person who gets frozen ends up regaining consciousness after being thawed out in the future.
- Cryo-Prison: Imprisoning people by cryogenically freezing them.
- Human Popsicle: A person who gets frozen ends up regaining consciousness after being thawed out in the future.
- Hijacking Cthulhu: Sometimes breaking the can works out.
- King in the Mountain: A legendary figure is believed to be in hibernation rather than deceased.
- Living Relic
- Mind Prison: A character is punished for their crimes by being imprisoned inside an illusion.
- Pieces of God
- Prison Dimension: Evil beings get incarcerated in another dimension.
- Sealed Army in a Can: An entire army that's been sealed away for a long time.
- Sealed Badass in a Can: A being is sealed away because they are too powerful to be allowed to roam free.
- Sealed Cast in a Multipack: When multiple people are all sealed away.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: An evil being is sealed away for a long time before eventually being freed.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: Someone plans to free the evil being from their imprisonment in hopes of gaining an ally, but they learn the hard way after releasing the evil being that the evil being has no interest in serving them.
- Eat the Summoner: A person who frees the imprisoned evil is rewarded by being eaten by the evil being.
- Leaking Can of Evil: The imprisoned evil being is still able to affect the world while sealed away.
- Sealed Evil in a Duel: A good being and an evil being spend eternity trapped somewhere while fighting each other.
- Sealed Evil in a Six Pack: An evil being is divided and imprisoned inside more than one object.
- Sealed Evil in a Teddy Bear: An evil being is kept at bay by confining it in a form that is cute and harmless.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: Someone plans to free the evil being from their imprisonment in hopes of gaining an ally, but they learn the hard way after releasing the evil being that the evil being has no interest in serving them.
- Sealed Good in a Can: A good being is sealed away for a long time before eventually being freed.
- Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: A being is imprisoned by trapping them inside a living person.
- Self-Destructing Security
- Tailor-Made Prison: A prison is made solely to imprison one person.
- Taken for Granite: A living being is immobilized by being turned into stone.
- Time Loop Trap: Being trapped within an infinitely looping event, sometimes without memory of the loop even occurring.
