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The Vamp

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She's bad and drawn that way.
"Oh such grace, oh such beauty— so precious, suspicious, and charming, and vicious,
Oh darling, you're a million ways to be cruel."
OK Go, A Million Ways

A classic character type, the beauty who uses her femininity and her sexuality as a weapon to undermine a moral and upright man, for evil purposes. She's evil and sexy, a liar, a manipulatrix and a sneak, and uses the good guy's sympathy against him, often with a sob story about her mother and some hospital bills or a Wounded Gazelle Gambit.

Unlike the Femme Fatale and the Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter, and even the Dark Feminine, she is rotten to the core, and will never be swayed from the path of darkness by love. (In eras where Makeup Is Evil applies, expect her to paint when no other woman does.)

The name comes from Rudyard Kipling's 1897 poem "The Vampire." It was popularized by the 1915 silent film A Fool There Was, which quoted liberally from the Kipling poem. It quickly became a trope of classic silent films, where this character is part of a standardized plot. A red-blooded American boy must choose between his familiar, cutesy-plain sweetheart and this seductress.

This trope is Cyclic. In certain eras, as with the "hat dichotomy" from Westerns, but more actual in fact, The Vamp is almost always black-haired, whereas the good girl is a blonde. In the Cold War era, the raven-haired temptress was a Soviet spy, when not just a torturer like The Baroness. At other times, blondes are inherently more evil. And of course, always keep an eye out for an Evil Redhead or two in the mix.

She may either wear a red dress or black lingerie.

Although the name is derived from "vampire," this character is most commonly a normal human, but some supernatural entities are known to influence men in this way. Succubi and Sirens are known to lure men in to be eaten or drained of Life Energy, or occasional literal vampires use their supernatural beauty and wit to lure male prey to their deaths, for example. If the story is sci-fi, her powers will involve pheromones or psychic manipulation.

Expect some Slaying Mantis or Seductive Spider imagery for these characters, as female mantises and spiders have been known to eat their male partners after mating (although the prevalence of this habit is greatly exaggerated in the media).

Compare with the Femme Fatale, the somewhat more sympathetic (and often less overtly sexual) version of this character (which may overlap with this trope if the character has an ambiguous agenda), and The Casanova. Often overlaps with the Black Widow, who is just a particularly successful Vamp, Gold Digger, who is motivated by greed for the target's wealth, and Intentional Heartbreaker, for when she strings the guy along for a while. See also Villainesses Want Heroes. Literal Man Eater is when this character literally eats the men she seduces.

Contrast with the Heroic Seductress, The Vamp's direct Counter Trope, who uses sex for noble and heroic purposes. Also contrast the Proper Lady, who saves it for her own man.

Not to Be Confused with the other Vamp.


Example subpages:


Other examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Parodied in Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, where a woman tries to pull this to steal government secrets from a group of Otaku. Of course, they were specifically chosen to guard the secrets because their obsession with 2D girls would make them immune to The Vamp...
  • Seraph of the End: Crowley notes in the novels that Ferid has the kind of beauty that can lure people in and corrupt them, which is part of his MO as a Depraved Bisexual.
  • Tsukiyama initially before his Character Development used his good looks and charm to lure others to him in order to eat them, particularly with his relationship with Kaneki in Tokyo Ghoul. He also shares the same voice actor as Light from Death Note.
    • Nutcracker is a female example, using her feminine wiles and beauty to lure men so as to crush and eat their testicles.
    • This was the MO of Rize Kamishiro. Known as "Binge Eater", she used her beauty to satisfy her infamous appetite by seducing attractive young men and then eating them. She attempted this on the protagonist, an innocent young man named Kaneki, but her feeding is interrupted and the plot of the series is triggered.
    • Eto seems to be this. She's mostly naked and acts seductive while committing acts of violence and mayhem.
  • Underdog has the buxom tournament coordinator Noa Takayanagi, who uses her feminine wiles early in the series both to convince Naoto to participate in the tournament and to get him out of trouble with a couple of police officers on patrol, by distracting them with her cleavage.
  • Kanoko's stepmother in Velvet Kiss is a chessmater who uses a combination of sex and blackmail to manipulate events, such as by having the wife of her lover killed due to neglectful hospital care, and then trying to do the same thing to the lover himself (now her husband). Deconstructed when all it takes is two people standing up to her and the entire plot crashes down around her.
  • In Windaria, Selenia is ordered by the Big Bad to seduce and then kill Alan. He's so taken with 'every beautiful inch of her' that it almost works.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! had a Sadist Teacher version named Ms. Chono from the first arc of the manga and the first anime series. She enforces arbitrary rules and enjoys expelling students, so much so that she regularly orders desk inspections to find out if any students are carrying contraband items. She also likes going on matchmaking dates just to crush men's hopes, and the one time a guy dumped her first she had a gigantic temper tantrum in the school bathroom. She gets her just desserts when Yami Yugi challenges her to a jigsaw puzzle game, where she cheats, and has her true ugliness exposed. Later on, she's able to appear normal with enough make-up, but when she acts mean or cruel her face will suddenly crack.
  • In Yu Gi Oh 5Ds, when Jack's love interest Carly is killed by a side villain, the primary antagonists resurrect her as a Dark Signer — complete with a sexier Evil Costume Switch — and send her to be Jack's opponent in the series of Final Battles. In her Brainwashed and Crazy state, Carly attempts to use Jack's feelings for her to convince him to surrender, join her, and conquer the future destroyed world she shows him in a vision, where they rule as a Battle Couple. Jack's temporarily all too happy to embrace the arrangement she shows him but ultimately snaps out of it.

    Comic Books 
  • Sin City:
    • Ava Lord from the story "A Dame to Kill For" was an evil (by her own admission) and greedy seductress who manipulated her old lover, Dwight McCarthy, through a Wounded Gazelle Gambit into murdering her husband so she could get her hands on all his money, and then tried to kill him once he had outlived his usefulness to her. As Manute, her Dragon (who would later show up in "The Big Fat Kill"), explains, Dwight is not the first man she has destroyed with her deadly wiles. Lampshaded-slash-deconstructed in her admission, as she points out that "evil ruthless seductress" is so cliche nobody believes she can be one...until it's too late.
    • A number of other female characters play this up too, such as the assassins Blue Eyes and Mariah, whose looks are on par with Ava Lord and have a thing for seducing their victims before murdering them. Their boss actually gets annoyed with the former because she keeps wasting valuable time during missions getting into snog-sessions.
  • Batman:
    • Poison Ivy started out as an evil seductress but eventually became an eco-terrorist. She still has shades of it though.
    • When reintroduced Post-Flashpoint Kathy Kane, the first Batwoman. She was initially out to seduce Batman to uncover his identity for the crime league, Spyral.
    • Talia al-Ghul is one of Batman's more long-term and complicated relationships. She often fluctuates between ally and enemy as Batman and her father, Ra's al-Ghul, battle one another. For her guest appearances in Birds of Prey, however, she has decided to exploit her extremely well-formed figure to manipulate and dominate the men she targets, starting with the father of Black Alice.
  • Sandman Mystery Theatre had an arc titled The Vamp, featuring one of these. The title character became a bit more sympathetic when her Start of Darkness story was told.
  • X-Men:
    • Mystique, long time foe of the X-Men, is the absolute embodiment of this trope.
    • Selene, the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club, also qualifies. Being a literal (psychic) vampire certainly helps.
  • Bridget Keating from Knights of the Dinner Table, although Bridget is more selfish than evil.
  • Lulu Romanov in Nikolai Dante. She is a member (and later leader) of the infamous Cadre Infernale and often seduces both men and women for her own ends. The narrations note that she's driven many of her lovers insane.
  • Fiona Fox from Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics). In addition, Rouge can qualify in her darker interpretations.
  • Wonder Woman:
    • Wonder Woman (1987): Veronica Cale, CEO of Cale-Anderson Pharmaceuticals. She sleeps with a senator to manipulate him into going along with her agenda. She also has sex with a couple of scientists (Will Magnus and Baron Bug) to manipulate them into sharing their scientific designs for her own purposes.
    • Wonder Woman (1942):
      • Earth-Two: Draska Nishki spends most of her time flirting with male marks and cops in order to take advantage of them. She poisons Steve Trevor's drink while kissing him, in the full knowledge that he's been sent to act as a Honey Pot against her, and manages to convince an Officer of the Court to leave her alone and unsupervised to go get her some cigarettes.
      • Earth-One: Sometimes the second Cheetah, who wears a much skimpier costume than her predecessor, but this is Depending on the Writer.
  • Queen Bee of Bialya from Justice League of America.
  • The Mighty Thor:
    • The Enchantress at her most villainous. In a very clear-cut nod to her role as a stand-in for Freya in the Marvel mythos, she once traded a single night of lovemaking with three Dwarven master-smiths in exchange for the magnificent necklace Brisengamen.
    • Her sister Lorelei too. Like her sister, she is proficient in using her beauty and charm in order to seduce and dominate the will of others. Unlike Amora, Lorelei has no interest in mastering sorcery other than to learn a few spells and potions to aid her seductive techniques.
  • Madam Slay from Black Panther.
  • Raptors: Camilla is introduced after having seduced a young man who is willing to give up everything to be with her, claiming the raven-haired Spanish beauty to be the most desirable woman he has ever known. She swiftly murders him, which she had been planning on doing all along. She's also seen luring in victims by pretending to be a streetwalker.
  • The Ultimates
    • Black Widow seduced Tony Stark to the point they became engaged, and then turned on the Ultimates.
    • Lorelei spends most of her brief panel time controlling men and gloating to women about it.

    Fan Works 
  • In Mega Man: Defender of the Human Race, Splash Woman brainwashes and seduces Mega Man, and forces him to promise not to tell anyone about her. Even thinking about Kalinka doesn't free him from her control, and Rush is enthralled by her powers.
  • Subverted with the plasmavore in Children of Time. She starts out as the seductress who wants nothing more than to suck all the blood out of your body, but she quickly becomes far more complicated a character than that and far more sympathetic. It should be noted that she does attempt to seduce Sherlock Holmes twice, and the second time, she nearly succeeds, helped along by a pheromone-enhancing concoction. However, she undergoes Character Development, namely Villain Decay.
  • Bart Simpson: Attorney at Law: Jessica Lovejoy has graduated into this from Fille Fatale. She is described as grown very hot and alluring and uses her seductive power to become the secretary for the successful attorney Bart Simpson and then sleeps with him. The relationship, however, causes Bart enormous stress, not liking being manipulated by the same girl who him in trouble when he was ten, and when he rejects her, she kidnaps him and tries drugging him into saying a marriage vow. When that doesn't work, she sues him for sexual harassment, claiming Bart took advantage of her citing to the court his bad-boy image, all the while mouthing to him "You're mine" .
  • From Episode 68 of the Professional Wrestling series The JWL: Khosrow Daivari had introduced Vladimir Kozlov and Aksana as the newest acquisitions of Daivari International during their appearance on The Rock's "The SmackDown Hotel". Later that same night, Shelton Benjamin defeated Cody Rhodes. Aksana walked out to distract Shelton, setting up Kozlov running in from the crowd and hitting him with a Battering Ram headbutt. Dusty Rhodes then walked out and paid off Daivari, Kozlov, and Aksana for the attack.
  • Fate/Black Dawn: Morgan views her body as just another of her weapons, albeit one that's more fun for her to use. On the first night of the tournament, she was planning on taking Shirou to bed and is extremely annoyed when he gets called away without even noticing that she was trying to seduce him.

    Films — Animation 
  • Holli Would from Cool World. Kind of like the evil blonde version of Jessica Rabbit. She is a beautiful and seductive "doodle", an animated being who resides in the alternate realm of Cool World. She dreams of becoming real and will say and do whatever it takes to get the power she believes is so rightfully hers.
  • The Little Mermaid (1989) - When Ariel and Eric start to grow closer to each other, Ursula transforms herself into a slim beautiful young woman named Vanessa in an attempt to hypnotize Eric into marrying her, stop the two from hooking up and overthrow King Triton.
  • The Copper-Haired Autumn Princess of Son of the White Horse, a living symbol of sexuality and fertility who goes around with her privates exposed, charms the dragon who kidnapped her into obedience and even tries to seduce the hero Treeshaker once he frees her, though Treeshaker is quick to remind her that she has two younger sisters who also need rescuing.
  • In Turning Red, Ming believes the character Siu-Jyu in the Jade Palace Diaries to be this.
    Ming: She's just using him to get to the throne.

    Music 
  • "She Was a Vamp", sung by Cher on The Sonny And Cher Show.
    She was a scamp, a camp and a bit of a tramp
    She was a V-A-M-P...Vamp!
  • Lorde plays one in "Magnets", her collaboration with Disclosure, and aggressively seduces an older man away from his wife. Subverted; she's actually a Professional Killer hired by the wife to kill him because she had enough of his abuse.
  • The central character of Lady Gaga's "Dance in the Dark" is accused of being this:
Run, run, her kiss is a vampire grin,
the moon lights her way while she's howling at him.
She looks good, but her boyfriend says she's a tramp,
she's a tramp, she's a vamp, but she still does her dance,
she's a tramp, she's a vamp, but she still kills the dance...

    Myths & Religion 
  • The classic Vamp in Abrahamic religions, of course, is Delilah, from the biblical story of Samson. The Biblical story clearly treats her as a villainess who tempts Samson away from his godly ways and thus brings about his downfall, emasculation, and captivity. She betrayed him very effectively, although her life was threatened. People weak in faith turning their backs on their powerful protector when threatened by the vast but easily avoidable powers of the wicked is a bit of a theme in the Bible, yes.
    • Samson was also a subversion, which indicates the trope is older than that. He consistently fed Delilah information she consistently used to get his enemies deployed where he could deal with them. Until he got arrogant enough to reveal all his secrets, he was managing her vamping quite well.
    • Another, more apt biblical example would be Amon's queen, Jezebel.
    • The Succubus, a demon which disguises itself as a beautiful woman to cause trouble (what kind of trouble tends to vary). The Incubus was her male counterpart.
  • In Hinduism, the apsaras are a kind of beautiful female Nature Spirit that sometimes seduce ascetics by their amusement, though more often by Indra's orders because he doesn't want someone to reach a spiritual level higher than his own. Contrary to most examples, apsaras are not inherently evil and don't usually harm their preys other than detracting them from enlightenment.
    • Vishnu himself becomes a gender-bending Heroic Seductress every time he turns into his female avatar Mohini.
  • Buddhism has the dakinis, demonesses that prey on humans. Their exact characterization varies heavily depending on the branch, the school and the place, but in Tibetan Buddhism they are specifically described as whimsical female spirits that enjoy seducing men and stealing their semen. Again, dakinis are not necessarily evil, and they can be even summoned in order to grant cosmic knowledge (the word dakini can even be a title for a regular woman who knows and practices the rituals of esoteric Buddhism).
  • The Sirens from Classical Mythology. Bird-women are not this at all despite what some people think. In fact their powers have nothing to do with sex at all and their songs actually brainwash people into thinking that they will be granted whatever they want most in the world if they come to their island. Making them more like Jackass Genies who can't grant wishes.
  • Older Than Dirt: Mesopotamian Mythology has the goddess Ishtar/Innana, who tends to cause her lovers' deaths, and the seductive Child Eater Lilitu. (Lilith if you were Hebrew.)
  • Chilota mythology has the Trauco. If he wants to be inside a woman, that woman is powerless to resist him. The same desire he has for a woman can also kill a man, so trying to deny him is not advised.
  • The Hone-onnanote  creates a look of a beautiful woman, based on how she looked when she was alive, to get close to her chosen lover and drain him of life so they can be together forever. The problem is it only works on him and everyone else sees a man flirting with and caressing a rotting corpse.
  • The White Witch of Rose Hall: Some takes on the legend make the titular slave-owning, Black Widow witch, an overtly sexual character, but no less malevolent.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • Yinling from Fighting Opera HUSTLE used her feminine wiles in her matches and could beguile entire arenas with just her sexy poses. Her Tokyo Sports popularity award indicates the latter was not purely kayfabe.
  • Taeler Hendrix after her heel turn, would openly try to hit on men, especially referees, for an advantage. When she found out Heidi Lovelace had a fangirl crush on her, Hendrix was willing to exploit that too. This talent got her hired by Truth Martini for the benefit of his clients.
  • Melina used her wiles to have sex with Batista and impede him from teaming up with Rey Mysterio against her allies. Unfortunately for her, her charm didn't last much, so she then switched to Wounded Gazelle Gambit mode and brought in Mark Henry.
  • Gino, perhaps best known for his Major League Wrestling work, is usually equal parts sexy nerd and lovable jock; a Latin Lover with a nigh irresitible charm he cannot help but cast on ladies. When he isn't a baby face, however, he's this trope, purposefully using his charm to have ladies to advance his goals for him or even to turn them on their friends for his own ammusement. When Thunder Rosa was observing this side of Gino on commentary she was initially in awe, and even after she saw through his ruse had to continually check herself as she slipped into condoning his actions.

    Roleplay 
  • Melissa from Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues is a sociopathic and seductive villainess who believes she can draw out the 'dark' sides of the morally good characters in the cast.
  • In Survival of the Fittest, several female players, such as Katherine Marks, Clemence, and Chi Masumi, have used their looks to try to seduce male opponents and catch them off guard or get protection/help from them. Usually, they try to kill the male once they're vulnerable. This has just about never worked, James Coombs, Naoji Hideyoshi, and Aaron Redfield being the only actual victims of this tactic so far. Non-player females sometimes try to do something similar to charm males into helping them, but this has become rare by v3.

    Tabletop Games 
  • The female, and literal, vampires of the Daeva clan from Vampire: The Requiem are the EMBODIMENTS of this trope. Although it depends on the player, the nicest Daeva vampiresses would be considered Femmes Fatales, but the book encourages you to play it straight; in other words, be downright evil.
  • Dungeons & Dragons has a Temptress character class amongst its many third-party sources.
    • A far more obvious example in Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder are the succubi, who are reimagined from medieval sexual predators to deadly femme fatale who manipulate their prey into eternal damnation before ripping out their souls and dragging it back to their home dimension. The exact fluff changes from edition to edition.
    • In some editions, the Fallen Angel erinyes is similar but prefers to manipulate individuals to tyrannical ends, though the most recent version is just a vengeful warrior who happens to look like a hot lady angel (though they are perfectly happy to exploit it when they're mistaken for actual angels).
    • There are also always about a dozen variants on the theme, such as the vampy devils called Brachina. They corrupt the servants of good gods.
    • Drow see this as their masculine ideal (drow are heavily associated with spiders, where the female is the bigger gender and calls the shots), as embodied in their god Keptolo, the Eager Consort. Keptolo is sexy, hedonistic, a master of social graces (and intrigue- they're pretty much one and the same to drow), and happy to serve his mistress's whims... so long as he gets to ride on her coattails. Keptolo is worshipped by most male drow, who strive to live up to his social and sexual talents. Temptation to villainy doesn't come up much because most Keptolo-worshipping drow will rarely, if ever, meet someone with a good alignment, but they will manipulate anyone they can get to listen to them.
  • Ravenloft has the Gentleman Caller, a mysterious incubus who seduces and impregnates important women just to ensure their doom.
  • Jacqueline Renier of Ravenloft is an example of this trope; she's a beautiful, raven-haired noblewoman. She's also a murderous wererat doomed to assume her true form in the presence of anyone she actually loves. This is a setting where Friendly Neighborhood Vampire is completely averted, and any sane person in the Land of Mists would draw their weapon or start running upon meeting any lycanthrope.
    • Gabrielle Aderre is this trope incarnate, as a seductive poisoner who cuts through men like a hot knife through butter. Unlike Jacqueline, she is pretty much a normal Hot Gypsy Woman aside from some Gypsy Curse powers. She, too, is Blessed with Suck, as her relationship with the Gentleman Caller has him out-Vamping her; their offspring is supposed to lead to the destruction of Gabrielle's people.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!: Vampire Vamp's name and effect actually invokes the trope. Konami even supports it in their TCG blog article on her.

    Theatre 
  • Not so much evil as irresponsible and immature, Mayzie La Bird is a kid-friendly version in Seussical.
  • The two female protagonists, Roxie and Velma, from Chicago are using their vamp skills to literally get away with murder.
  • Sally Bowles from Cabaret is another more irresponsible and immature than evil version.
  • Fastrada, Pippin's Stepmother from Pippin, is this to a V. She manipulates both Charles and Pippin to make sure her 'darling' son Lewis is next in line to the throne. Of course, she's manipulating Pippin for other reasons..."Sometimes I wonder if the fornicating I'm getting is worth the fornicating I'm getting."-Charles
  • Adelheid von Walldorf in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Goetz Von Berlichingen. She uses her beauty to enamour and manipulate the Knight Adelbert von Weislingen; then, when he has outlived his usefulness, has him murdered.
  • Cirque du Soleil examples:
    • The Black Widow in Mystère tries to corrupt the Archangel who performs the aerial cube act.
    • Two of the Mutants in Zarkana, Kundalini and Tarantula, aim to lure the hero away from his quest to reunite with his sweetheart. They are both Mix-and-Match Critters — one a snake(s) woman, another a spider woman.
    • The pole dancer who performs to "Dangerous" (see Music above) in Michael Jackson The IMMORTAL World Tour.
  • The Play That Goes Wrong: The character of Florence in the Play Within a Play; Sandra turns it up to eleven by playing even her "hysterical episodes" seductively. It goes even past that when Trevor, forced to read Florence's lines, starts fake-grinding on the Inspector as a "hysterical episode".

    Toys 
  • Roodaka from BIONICLE is a quintessential, albeit non-sexual example, as this is a LEGO franchise for kids. She seduces the disillusioned hero Vakama by promising him might and the ownership of his former home, then presents the now brainwashed and servile Vakama to her hated "king" and would-be husband Sidorak as an engagement gift. Meanwhile she secretly consipires with Vakama to overthrow Sidorak, who is far too preoccupied with playing king and trying to please Roodaka, unaware she's luring him into a trap. For that matter, even Vakama fails to realize her kindness to him is a ploy. She is also the only character in the series whose toy heavily plays up her feminine design (which allegedly lead to complaints that LEGO "over-sexualized" her design), and The Movie even gave her something of a snake motif. The filmmakers nicknamed her "Lady Macbeth" during production.

    Video Games 
  • In ActRaiser's sequel, the demon of Lovaous, a ice creature made of beautiful ice crystals, representing lust, takes on a gorgeous form of a naked woman covered by a scarf, showing off her shapely legs, long wavy hair, and hypnotic hips. She used her beautiful charms to seduce the king of Lovaous into falling in an eternal sleep while making his subjects miserable.
  • Shin Megami Tensei I has Yuriko, who has the general look and mannerisms down, but quickly revealing her Murder the Hypotenuse tendencies kinda killed her effectiveness. Really doesn't help that she's actually Lilith and thus hit with a severe case of No Campaign for the Wicked.
  • The SiN series features Vamp/Baroness combo Elexis Sinclaire.
  • Metal Gear:
    • The series features a male character codenamed Vamp, who fits aspects of this trope. His codename is derived not from his taste for drinking blood, but from his bisexuality, playing off an older use of the term. The sexual aspects were downplayed in-game, compared to the original trailer, but it was conclusively stated that he is not, in fact, a vampire. Twice.
      • Vamp is a subversion. Vamp had a boyfriend in the form of Scott Dolph before said boyfriend was killed in the tanker incident. Although it's never outright stated that his relationship wasn't for some sort of underlying, self-centered motive, nothing about it ever gave him any kind of gain. His boyfriend was his best friend's father, on top of it, which could've conceivably risked damaging that friendship, so the only possible reason for him to have the relationship was out of genuine care for Dolph. It's played straight in Guns of the Patriots, however, as he's really friendly with Naomi, and she does have something of value he wants: his own death.
    • From Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, there's EVA, to some extent, though you don't find out 'til the ending. However, she's a subversion of this trope, as it's revealed that she genuinely did love Big Boss, and even joined him in overthrowing the faction of The Patriots lead by Major Zero, Para-Medic, and Sigint after the organization was split in two, thanks to a falling out between Big Boss and Major Zero, part of which was caused by Zero cloning Big Boss and creating Big Boss' "sons". Moreover, EVA volunteered to be the surrogate mother of Solid and Liquid, all because of her love for Big Boss, and even though Solid Snake was a clone, she still saw him as a son.
    • Image Song of Mistral mentioned this.
      So don't let me become the one you love, 'cause I'll just take your blood and use you up,
  • From the third Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, there's Dahlia Hawthorne, who manipulated at least 3 men using her innocent façade.
  • Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 has Reina, who attempts to get Derek to join her company, steals his Healing Touch, and finally carries the final Neo-GUILT.
  • Saya from Namco × Capcom. She even calls Reiji by pet names!
  • You can play one in the Neverwinter Nights mod A Dance with Rogues. There are a surprising number of quests in which having sex with enemies is a shortcut to let you kill them more easily, or, in the case of the Dhorn Generals' Heads quest in the first chapter, the only path to getting to kill them.
  • A literal example with Alva in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. After becoming a vampire, her leader Movarth sent her into Morthal with the intent of seducing and enslaving all of the guards. She falls for a lowly lumberjack and then has her thrall slaughter his whole family to cover her tracks after seducing him.
  • In Fallout: New Vegas, a female protagonist is able to seduce Benny and bypass the security. From there she can either sleep with him and kill him, or just kill him as soon as they enter the room.
  • Morinth from Mass Effect 2. Her modus operandi is seducing people, then killing them via her genetic defect that causes brain overload during sex. Interestingly, she's a recruitable character, and attempting to romance her goes about as well for Shepherd as it did for everyone else.
  • The Dark Jedi Sariss in Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II seduced a wealthy baron after manipulating him into joining her cult and agreed to marry him, before seducing his Force-sensitive son Yun as well into killing him and becoming her apprentice, using his feelings for her to manipulate him further but never reciprocating as she grew to see him as a son and friend rather than a lover.
  • Kaliyo Djannis in Star Wars: The Old Republic, the Imperial Agent's Rattataki companion, Token Evil Teammate (even by The Empire's very low standards), and potential Love Interest for those with no capability of pattern recognition. A Consummate Liar and Manipulative Bastard with a long history of getting men (and occasionally women) to care about her before inevitably bleeding them dry of everything they have. By the time of the Fallen Empire expansion, she's Jumped Off The Slippery Slope and become a full-on terrorist.
  • In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, Chalis is a spy who specializes in charming kings out of national secrets (and into trouble) with "a rare beauty not often seen in Angara". She also tries to tempt Matthew into cooperating, and he literally can't turn her down. Her ambiguous motive still makes the fans argued that she is this trope or Femme Fatale.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! Monster Capsule GB, Mai flirts with Yugi when she first sees him, much to Tea's annoyance.
  • Tala in Dark Watch. Though she is introduced as a member of the titular organization that hunts vampires, she is very seductive and clearly up to no good. She ends up tricking the hero to turn her into a vampire while they are having sex so she can gain his powers and takes up the Big Bad position after the hero destroys Lazarus, and she steals his power to remake the world in her image.

    Web Animation 
  • In Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged, Scarlet had sex with Reeve just so she could have the opportunity to mock his performance during a board meeting. One of Barret's flashbacks also revealed that she tried to proposition him, even after hearing that his wife was terminally ill.

    Webcomics 
  • In Girl Genius, the legendary Spark Lucrezia Mongfish would use seduction to manipulate others into doing her bidding. If that didn't work, she had Slaver Wasps.
  • Amelia Sturtz in Dominic Deegan used her looks to get men close enough to her to hypnotize them through eye contact.
  • Sabine from The Order of the Stick is a succubus in red leather. In a bit of a subversion, her vamping doesn't work on the Genre Savvy Roy Greenhilt the time she tried it on him, and most of it is directed at her boss, Nale. It didn't work on Miko, either.
  • Jezebel Starr from EVIL will seduce you, rob you, and likely leave you for dead.
  • The Fox Sister: The Kumiho uses the attractiveness of her human form to bait men.

    Web Original 

    Web Videos 
  • The Spoony Experiment did a Counter Monkey episode on how frequently this trope is employed in tabletop roleplaying games. As mentioned above, Dungeons & Dragons has a character class for it and more than one monster is built on this concept, most commonly the succubus.

    Western Animation 
  • Subverted in one of Saturday Night Live's "Ambiguously Gay Duo" cartoon shorts. An alien queen plans to use her feminine wiles to distract Ace and Gary, but Dr. Bighead replies, "I, uh, don't think that'll work on those two." Which it didn't. They have very strong moral constitutions, obviously.
  • Batman: The Animated Series: This show features many seductive beauties worthy of this label, with hands down the biggest being Poison Ivy. Her debut episode sees her ensnare Harvey Dent's heart, stringing him along for awhile, pretending to be head over heels in love, before the night she decides to give him one, final kiss. And, when Batman skulks into her greenhouse lair, hellbent on securing the antidote for her lipstick, only to be pulled into the tight embrace of a giant mutant flytrap's Vine Tentacles, Isley flirtatiously greets him, treating the encounter like a cozy date at her place, before insistently sharing a passionate goodnight kiss with Batman as well, one she takes tremendous, sultry pleasure in.
  • Queen Chrysalis in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic plays this trope quite well, and takes it a step further by actually kidnapping someone's bride and replacing her with Voluntary Shapeshifting. Considering she's essentially a G-Rated Succubus, it's not too surprising.
  • Sedusa of The Powerpuff Girls. On two different occasions, she's tried to seduce Professor Utonium and the Mayor of Townsville. Almost literally in her third appearance as the animators added fangs to her teeth.
  • In Samurai Jack, there was Josephine Clench (also a Dark Action Girl) who once formed half of an Outlaw Couple with her husband Zeke. This seemed to be a vital part of the pair's strategy; she would cozy up to a victim in order to gain trust so that he would let his guard down, and be unprepared for the far-less subtle attack from Zeke. (Even better, if the victim tried to defend Josephine from him thinking she was in danger, he'd likely expose his back to her, and it would be over for him quickly.) Unfortunately for the pair, she was so rotten that Zeke divorced her and got a restraining order. They called a truce to collect the bounty on Jack (at which point her skills at seduction worked very well on the Samurai) but Josephine double-crossed Zeke in the end (which leads you to believe that may have caused the divorce in the first place). Ironically, this is what helped Jack defeat her as well.
  • Venus in The Tick is a G-rated example, played for comedy. She can channel her "feminine wiles" into a form of actual mind control.
  • The Mask: In Bride of Pretorius after Evelyn accidentally puts on the mask that had her glasses attached to it and her alter ego Eve comes out, while Eve is lustful and clearly trying to use her looks to get Stanley to kiss her she genuinely cares and loves him very much, she also has morals as well as she refuses to take Pretorius's offer to marry him and rescues Stanley instead showing that she has a good heart and, does not like anyone who will hurt or kill innocent people so that they can get what they want therefore the evil part is Downplayed
  • Blackarachnia of Transformers: Animated wavered between this and Femme Fatale. Even if she was redeemed, it would be very hard for anyone (besides Optimus, the sap) to trust her. Which is odd, because while she's fairly sexy by human body shape standards, she's also techno-organic—and most Transformers are repulsed by anything organic. However, many of the Autobots find her very attractive and only Blitzwing and Sentinel Prime react with anything approaching disgust. The latter even tries to kill her, despite the fact that she was once his girlfriend.
  • Minx from Jem is a manipulative heartbreaker who toys with men then throws them aside. It's left vague if Minx actually likes Rio or if she just wants to steal him from both Jem and Jerrica, however nevertheless he sees her as an Abhorrent Admirer. Minx tends to dress in black but is a blond.
  • The Hollow: Vanessa primary method of interaction with the main characters is to find one way or the other to seduce Kai into helping her.

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