Seize Them!

"Zombie guards, seize him! Tell me that's not fun to say."

— Mentok, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law

A uniquely aristocratic command, shouted by particularly melodramatic villains.

The Baroness has stumbled across The Hero in an alley. The Evil Prince has discovered The Five-Man Band infiltrated his Decadent Court. The Evil Chancellor has crashed the revolutionaries meeting.

The Good Guys are outnumbered. The Big Bad is there with an army of Mooks. They do the only logical thing. They run!

Alternatively, the Evil Chancellor and his retinue just fell for the heroes' plan and the King tells in no uncertain terms that he heard their Engineered Public Confession.

On occasion, a heroic character may invoke this trope when they've got the antagonist cornered - usually, this use of the trope comes into play as part of the resolution, after the heroes have already won and have managed to thoroughly trounce their opponent and any army they might have with them.

This phrase is usually preceded or followed by some of these other Stock Phrases:

• Close the gates!
• He's getting away!
• I'm surrounded by imbeciles!
• Must I do everything myself?
• Fools!
• Get/After him/her/them!
• Take him/her/them away!

Seize them!

For the film, see here.

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Examples

Anime and Manga

• Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea. At the beginning Jack Walker (the title Pokemon Ranger) reveals himself aboard the Phantom's submarine and obtains the Manaphy egg that the Phantom just acquired. The Phantom tells his pirate minions to "Seize him."

Comic Books

• Asterix: The villain's deputy Navishtrix says this in Asterix and the Golden Sickle when the heroes enter the traffickers' underground hideout.

Fan Works

• Loved and Lost:
  • In the fifth chapter, Prince Jewelius tricks everyone in Canterlot into blaming the Royal Guard's captain Shining Armor, the princesses and Twilight's friends for the Changeling invasion. When the shocked heroes try to escape, they're arrested after Jewelius gives this order to the guards.
  • As Jewelius revels about his secret evil deeds in the imprisoned heroes' faces during the 11th chapter, Celestia gives this order to two guards from her cell. They laugh in response and are revealed to be convicts whom Jewelius released to serve in the Royal Guard after he wiped out all the original guards who were injured during the Changeling invasion yet continued swearing loyalty to the dismantled princesses.
  • When the heroes are released from their restraints during the interrupted Public Execution of Celestia, Jewelius keeps ranting this order from his booth as his guards try unsuccessfully to defeat the heroes.
• The Night Unfurls: In Chapter 19 of the original, Commander Berol is ousted as a traitor by Kyril and his company. Both parties try to use this trope on the other, to no avail for the former.
  Kyril: Commander Berol, by the authority vested in me by the Goddess Incarnate, you have been charged with dereliction of duty and have been sentenced to hang at dawn. Sergeant Roland, seize this man.
  Berol: Y-You can't do this to me, you upstart foreigner! Sergeant Roland, detain this man!
  Roland: *shakes head* I don't follow the words of a traitor.
  Kyril: You have been relieved of command, Berol. Deal with it. Or pray, seeing as the hangman's noose waits for no man. Farewell, Berol.

Film — Animated

• The Great Mouse Detective: When Queen Mousetoria discovers that Rattigan is behind the plot to replace her with a robot, she orders "Guards, seize that despicable creature!" Rattigan then says the same through the robot queen and the guards, who are really his lackies in disguise, take the Queen away.
• The Disney version of The Prince and the Pauper:
  • Mickey, pretending to be the Prince, is being forced by Captain Pete to relinquish the crown to him. During the ceremony, Mickey uses this method to get Pete captured, but Pete turns it around on him.
  Mickey: Guards, seize him!
  Pete: No, seize him! He's an imposter!
  • It appears earlier as one of the two phrases the Prince tells Mickey are all he needs to say to be a ruler. (The other is "That's a splendid idea, I'm Glad I Thought of It."
• The Disney version of Robin Hood (1973).
• Disney's Sleeping Beauty:
  King Stefan: Seize that creature!
• The Thief and the Cobbler has the line 'Sieze Him! Take Him! Sieze Him! Take Him!' spoken by Zig Zag the film's Large Ham and primary antagonist.

Film — Live-Action

• Blazing Saddles. Sheriff Bart and the Waco Kid try to infiltrate Hedley Lamaar's army of thugs. When they're revealed they run away and Hedley Lamaar yells "Seize them!" to his minions.
• Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe (1953 Film Serial). The Ruler says this when ordering Commando Cody thrown into his Mind Control chair. Good Old Fisticuffs ensure as our hero has other ideas.
• The Last Starfighter. After Emperor Xur screws up, Commander Kril orders the Ko-Dan soldiers to "Seize him!''
• Mortal Kombat: The Movie: Shang Tsung tries this when the heroes have infiltrated the Black Tower to rescue Sonya under the guise of the brown-robed monks. But Princess Kitana, who is also among them, stops them in their tracks with a "STAY WHERE YOU ARE!" before denouncing the Big Bad for trying to "interfere with the Tournament" and win it by treachery.
• Tank Girl. As Tank Girl and Sam are escaping Liquid Silver, the Madame recognizes Tank Girl and shouts "Seize them! Guards!"
• Played for laughs in ¡Three Amigos! by Lucky Day (Steve Martin). When he's surrounded by the Mooks of the Big Bad El Guapo, all pointing guns at his head, he yells "Seize him!" (referring to El Guapo).
• The modern version was uttered in Tommy Boy by Zalinski: "Don't let him leave the premises, Marty." This was preceded by the far more middle class "GET HIM!", said by Tommy.
• The Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, in the castle as the Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion and Tin Man escape with Dorothy and Toto.
  The Wicked Witch of the West: Seize them, seize them! Stop them, you fools, stop them! Seize them! Seize them!
• Monty Python's Life of Brian: Brian used the chance that the Roman guards were laughing their asses off when they learned about the name of Pontius Pilate's best friend Biggus Dickus' wife, Incontintentia Buttocks to slide away and run from captivity. Pilate caught on quickly and traded the berating with the trope... while the guards were still laughing.
  Pontius Pilate: Seize him! Come on, blow your noses and seize him!!

Literature

• Animorphs: Visser Three says this all the time.
• Children of Dune. When Leto knocks the door to Alia's room off its hinges and enters her presence along with his sister Ghanima, Alia shouts at her guards to "Seize them!" Leto picks up the 1,000 lb. door he just came through and throws it at the guards.
• Discworld:
  • In Guards! Guards!, the Palace guard is at one point to seize Vimes. Genre Savvy as they are, they question the wisdom of attacking a lone person, who might even start swinging on the chandelier.
  • In another book Rincewind has had so many variations on this phrase that he muses (while running) that his nickname is "Don't let him get away!".
• In the Star Trek novel How Much for Just the Planet? the evil queen gets to shout "Seize her!" several times during the scene in which she disciplines a servant girl who tried to help the prisoners escape. The last time, it's "Seize her again. Oh, I do like saying that."
• Tortall Universe: In The Immortals book Wolf-Speaker, Rikash says (in an 'It Makes Sense in Context way') "Get that SQUIRREL!!"^note The context? The heroine is The Beastmaster and a shapeshifter.
• Even The Stainless Steel Rat does this (admittedly he was posing as an Admiral of the League Grand Fleet at the time).
  "I am arresting you for conspiracy, extortion, theft, and whatever other charges develop after a careful review of these documents. Seize him." This last order was directed at the robot who was well briefed in its role. It rumbled forward and locked its hand around Ferraro's wrist, handcuff style. He barely noticed.

Live Action TV

• Arrow. In "Canary Cry", the Green Arrow talks another vigilante out of killing Corrupt Politician Ruvé Adams, who responds by pointing dramatically at the Arrow and saying:
  Ruve: Arrest him!
  Oliver: I've seen this movie before...
• Doctor Who
  • This happens on three separate occasions in "The Masque of Mandragora". Sarah Jane Smith is about to become a Human Sacrifice when the Doctor slips her off the sacrificial stone Just in Time. The leader of the cult responds with this trope, but fortunately their 'god' turns up and they start worshipping it instead while our heroes slip away. Count Frederico orders "When I give the signal, seize him!" when going to confront the leader of the cult, only to get a fatal shock when he tries a Dramatic Unmask. When the Doctor informs Frederico's captain of the bad news, Captain Rossini tries this trope only to find his men have switched sides now that their master is dead.
• Farscape. John Crichton is infiltrating a Peacekeeper base disguised as an officer. It's later revealed that Scorpius can see heat, and this vision showed that Crichton wasn't even the right species.
  Scorpius: Guards, that man is an impostor. Seize him.
  • An interesting example, since this trope is usually an indicator of Incoming Ham, yet Scorpius delivers the line with an utterly flat affect.
• Star Trek: Voyager. In the World of Ham holodeck program "The Adventures of Captain Proton", Emperor Scientist Dr Chaotica does this when siccing his Killer Robot on his bungling henchman Lonzak.
  Dr Chaotica: Fool! You will pay for your incompetence. Seize him!
• 30 Rock lampshaded this trope's association with hammy villains.
  Jack: Uh, Lemon... do you think I'm a villain?
  Liz: Well, I have heard you say, "Guards, seize him."
  Jack: I was at a Knicks game. They needed to stop the clock.
• The Odd Squad episode "Villains in Need Are Villains Indeed" has Jamie Jam, Noisemaker and Mr. Lightning breaking into Precinct 13579's Headquarters, where Oprah promptly greets them with this:
  Oprah: Well, well, well. If it isn't Jamie Jam, Noisemaker, and Mr. Lightning. How dare you break into my Squad. Seize them!!

Radio

• From the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978) radio series:
  Hig Hurtenflirst: [to foot warrior] Well then just seize the prisoners.
  [Foot warrior falls over]
  Hurtenflirst: Prisoners.
  Arthur and Lintilla: Yes?
  Hurtenflirst: Seize each other.

Theatre

• Urinetown has this a few times.

Video Games

• A heroic example comes in at the end of The Legend of Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, after King Harkinian has been rescued.
  Lord Kiro: "Here's the traitor, your majesty!"
  Duke Onkled: "Please, your omnipotence, have mercy!"
  King Harkinian: "After you've scrubbed all the floors in Hyrule, then we can talk about mercy! Take him away!"
  Lord Kiro: "Yes my liege!"
• In the ending sequence of Wing Commander IV, Admiral Tolwyn demonstrates how to be a melodramatic villain.

Visual Novels

• In Daughter for Dessert, Cecilia commands Mortelli to arrest the protagonist when he breaks into her hotel room.
  Cecilia: Your job is to protect the innocent from the guilty, and that man is clearly guilty!

Web Original

• The Onion's Seize Him!

Webcomics

• Digger: Digger caught this from the hyenas at one point.
• Girl Genius: Variants are used in three pages in a row by the same character.
• The Order of the Stick: In the prequel comic Start of Darkness, Xykon uses this trope to explain why he needs new lackies when he meets Redcloak;
  "Just last week the good guys burst into my throne room, right? And I shouted, "Get them, you fools!" purely by reflex. Well, you can imagine how embarrassing it was when I realized I had to "Get them" myself. I mean, talk about awkward.

Western Animation

• Beetlejuice: In "To Beetle or Not to Beetle", Lydia is captured by a band of rogue Shakespeare characters, and we're treated to Hamlet giving the line "Julius, seize her!"
• Birdman (1967)
  • Episode "Versus Cumulus, the Storm King". When Cumulus goes to make his blackmail demands on the U.S. government, a military officer says he doesn't believe that Cumulus has weather-control powers and orders "Seize him, guards!" Cumulus then freezes the guards inside a block of ice.
  • Episode "The Empress of Evil". After Birdman escapes being Fed to the Beast and rescues the prince, Medusa tells her giant female Mookss to "Seize him!"
• In the Futurama episode "A Clone of My Own". The Near-Death Star Robots, and...
  Guard: Get them! I mean, seize them!
  • Another version, subverted:
    Bureaucrat 1.0: Guards! Bring me the forms I have to fill out to have her taken away!
• The Herculoids episode "The Mole Men".
• Johnny Bravo:
  • In "Brave New Johnny", when Johnny heckles a comedian in a Bad Future, the man orders his guards to seize him.
  • In "Quo Doofus", Johnny gets sent to Ancient Rome. When someone says "Caesar", he thinks they said "Seize her" and grabs a woman. Her husband yells to his guards "Seize him!" and Johnny replies, "Seize him, seize her. Why don't you guys make up your minds?"
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: "Elements of Harmony" starts with a scene that seems to be a Shout-Out to Disney's Sleeping Beauty example above. Compare the dialogues:
  Maleficent: [evil laugh]
  King Stefan: Seize that creature!
  Maleficent: Stand back, you fools! (scares the guards off, then disappears in green flames laughing)
  
  Nightmare Moon: [evil laugh]
  Mayor Mare: Seize her! Only she knows where the princess is!
  Nightmare Moon: Stand back, you foals! (scares the guards with lightnings, then goes away in a mist laughing)
• In Filmation's "The Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty", there's a running gag where, whenever Tyrone (the main villain) would tell his henchman to "seize him", they would respond with "We sees him! We sees him!".
• Space Ghost
  • "Revenge of the Spider Woman''. After Space Ghost breaks out of the cell he's in Spider Woman orders her guards to seize Jan and Jace.
  • "Homing Device". After Metallus' robots discover the Tracking Device on Blip's collar, Metallus orders them to seize him.
• Star Wars Rebels: In "Through Imperial Eyes", when Agent Kallus orders Lieutenant Lyste arrested after he stuns Governor Pryce:
  "Troopers! Seize him!"
• Super Friends 1973/74 episode "The Androids". When Batman figures out that the Superman in the Hall of Justice is actually an android double he yells "Grab him!" to the other Super Friends. Unfortunately the android had already left the room so they couldn't.

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