Unable to Retreat

"As long as this Pokémon is in the Active Spot, your opponent's Active Pokémon can't retreat."

— Snorlax's Ability, Pokémon Trading Card Game

Every adventurer knows it's important to have a solid exit strategy in case the worst happens. This trope is for when that exit plan falls apart after you already got yourself in the situation.

It's common in media to unexpectedly take away someone's ability to retreat, as a way to raise the stakes. This allows characters to willfully enter danger under the assumption they can Opt Out whenever they so wish—while also not letting them have the luxury of leaving when things do go south. This is one of the most mundane forms of trapping, simply cutting off someone's means of exit. The character doesn't even have to specifically try to escape, someone could just destroy the exit when they saw you eyeing it to be on the safe side.

This can happen to individuals, but also entire armies.

Losing your exit can also be the result of an accident or something unexpected that's no one's fault. Such as a Plot-Driven Breakdown or Alien Geometries. The point is, you're in deep now, and you've lost your Escape Rope.

May create a Cornered Rattlesnake situation when someone fights harder because they have no other option. May also be a case of Simple Solution Won't Work or being Lured into a Trap.

There are lots of ways to apply this in video games. When applied as a game mechanic this can force a Win to Exit scenario. This is very common for boss rooms (especially the Ghost Butler variation). Alternatively, in Tag Team games, this can manifest as disabling someone's Switch-Out Move or capacity to disengage once combat starts. Anti-Escape Mechanism is a way you can do this to certain enemies. Contrast Big Damn Fire Exit. Compare You Will Not Evade Me.

Super-Trope to:

• Burning the Ships: When a character does this voluntarily to force commitment.
• Closed Circle: When this is the setup for the whole story.
• Ghost Butler: When a door slams and locks behind someone immediately.
• Inescapable Ambush: When a video game traps you in a room with enemies.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• In Pokémon: The Series, the move Mean Look is first encountered during Johto Journeys, used by Morty's Haunter in the Ecruteak Gym to prevent Ash's Cyndaquil from being switched out.

Fan Works

• Dungeon Keeper Ami: In "What a Mess" features an ambush in a target's confined bedroom had "attackers blocking every available exit".
• A Mad Glimmer: When Starlight's attempts to fight Discord fail, she tries to teleport away. She's immediately snapped back to the middle of the cave, due to his reality-warping magic.
• Quizzical: Across multiple stories, Quizzical has gotten stuck in multiple dangerous locations, such as an airtight cave, a burning building, and a freezing storm while inside of an unheated building.

Film — Animated

• Bolt: During the climax, when Bolt is trying to rescue Penny from the burning building, all of the exits get blocked by falling debris, meaning that neither of them can get out. Eventually, though, Bolt finds a vent, and by barking as loud as he can, his bark is able to reach the outside and lets the fire department know where they are so that they both can get rescued.

Film — Live-Action

• The Matrix:
  • Whenever the Agents track down one of the heroes, their first move is to cut the hardline so that they won't be able to easily jack out of the Matrix; in the first instance of this, Trinity is forced to leave the area on foot with an Agent in hot pursuit until she reaches a payphone. However, when the Agents corner Neo and Morpheus, they go the extra mile by using their power over the Matrix to brick up all the exits, resulting in Mouse getting cornered and shot dead and forcing the rest of the heroes to sneak out between the internal walls of the building. Though this works, Morpheus has to stay behind to prevent Agent Smith from pursuing them, getting beaten to a pulp and captured soon after.
  • Soon after, just as Neo, Trinity, Apoc, and Switch have found a viable phone, Cypher takes out Doser and Tank back in the real world, meaning there's no Operator to log them out, leaving them effectively trapped in the Matrix. And then Cypher begins fatally unplugging them one by one. Neo and Trinity are saved when Tank proves to be Not Quite Dead and promptly kills Cypher for being a traitor.
• Return of the Jedi: The Empire's strategy at the Battle of Endor is to use the Death Star and the Emperor as bait to draw the Rebel Fleet to mass and attack. An Imperial Navy fleet under Admiral Piett then hides behind the planet Endor, coming forth to cut off the Rebels' retreat when they arrive, so that Palpatine and Moff Jerjerrod can destroy the fleet at will with the Death Star itself. Lando Calrissian upends the plan by convincing Admiral Ackbar to attack Piett's fleet at close range, forcing the Death Star to hold its fire or else risk hitting their own ships, buying Han Solo's strike team the time they need to win the ground battle.

Literature

• In The Art of War, Sun Tzu actually argues against doing this: an entirely encircled enemy is likely to fight to the death if you attempt to crush them, costing the attacker unnecessary casualties, or else you'll have to conduct a lengthy siege. Whereas if you leave a gap through which to escape, the enemy is likely to rout—which historically is when the defender sustains the most casualties. From the Lionel Giles translation:
  "Throw your soldiers into positions whence there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight. Men and officers alike will put forth their uttermost strength."
• Paprika: In the anime adaptation, after Paprika discovers the identity of the Big Bad, she tries to confront him in the real world... only to realize too late that she's still dreaming. Worse still, the Big Bad is hacking her DC Mini, meaning that she can't be woken up, leaving Dr Shima frantically trying to log her out and being blocked by error messages every single time, while Paprika flees across the dream world with a living nightmare in hot pursuit.
• Reign of the Seven Spellblades: On their second night at Kimberly Magic Academy in volume 1 (anime episode 2), Oliver, Pete, and Chela accidentally end up in the labyrinth under the school and are accosted by predatory upperclasswoman Ophelia Salvadori. They flee, only to be intercepted by another upperclassman, Cyrus Rivermoore, who conjures a fence of bones in their path, blocking their escape so that they may be victimized by whomever wins the ensuing Wizard Duel between himself and Salvadori.
• So I'm a Spider, So What?: Ariel's [Great Demon King] skill prevents opponents from running away, which is a problem for a relatively Fragile Speedster like Kumo. She ends up getting her main body killed and having to respawn elsewhere.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: Used by the Lannisters during the Battle of the Blackwater. Stannis launches an amphibious assault on King's Landing by leading his fleet from the bay into the river. The Lannisters use the city's natural terrain to their advantage by fastening an enormous chain across the mouth of the river. They raise the chain once Stannis' fleet has crossed the mouth, preventing any ships from turning back as the Lannisters light them aflame with wildfire.

Live-Action TV

• In The Crystal Maze, the contestant must exit the chamber before the time expires, otherwise they are locked in, and can only be released by sacrificing a crystal. Some games cause the contestant's exit to be blocked, meaning that they must complete the challenge in time, to avoid being locked in. Notable examples were:
  • In series 3, if the contestant picked up the crystal, a portcullis would come crashing down in front of the exit. The contestant then had to build a winch mechanism to raise it.
  • In series 6, the contestant would enter a large safe, and find the crystal, but the door would close behind them. The contestant had to escape by sliding many bolts about in another door.
  • A later series featured the "riddle jail": the contestant would enter the cell, only to be imprisoned by a masked executioner. The contestant had to answer three riddles to escape.
• Kamen Rider:
  • Kamen Rider Kuuga: Go-Jalaji-Da gets subjected to a barbaric No-Holds-Barred Beatdown by the titular Rider himself, to the point Godai uses his own motorcycle's front bonnet to drag Jalaji away from a distance where he is about to meet his end by Rising Titan's Finishing Move.
  • Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: While Para-DX does receive far greater punishments prior to teleporting away, Ex-Aid manages to deliver this as part of a Mook Horror Show, preventing his escape and striking fear into what is perceived as his first death.
  • Kamen Rider Zi-O: Like all Mirror World Riders, Another Ryuga can use reflective surfaces as his transportation. Zi-O II blocks his escape by smashing all mirrors behind him before he delivers his finishing move.
  • Kamen Rider Outsiders: Banno/Bronze Drive pathetically tries to make a run after his pleas to spare his life fail. Zein unleashes all 10 Seikens to skewer Bronze Drive before he exploded. Fortunately Banno survived by transferring his data to Brain's tablet.

Myths and Legends

• Classical Mythology: After tracking the Nemean Lion back to its cave, Heracles/Hercules got a bunch of heavy stones to block up the exit, before walking in through the entrance to make sure the lion would have to fight its way past him to escape. It didn't.

Tabletop Games

• This is the effect of Summer's Bargain in Changeling: The Lost. While Summer reigns, the Gentry and their servants cannot retreat once battle has been joined and must fight to the death.
• Pokémon: Some attacks have conditions that disable the standard Ability for Active Pokemon to retreat to the Bench as an action. There are also ways to increase and decrease the cost of retreating.

Video Games

• Doom:
  • Doom: Common traps involve closing certain doors for 30 seconds (e.g. E 1 M 6: Central Processing), having doors open only on one side, doors that require a key to head through in the return route, and so on.
  • E3M7 of the mod No End in Sight is structured in a way such that several areas cannot be revisited, and trying to explore the level out of sequence will render many of the inaccessible from the get-go (this doesn't make the level Unwinnable by Design, it just makes the player reach the exit too soon and miss all the hidden goodies).
  • My House requires getting the blue skull key to unlock the exit. Picking it up removes the doors leading out of the house.
• Dungeon Crawl: In The Vaults, vault wardens can cast spells that seal the doors and staircases, preventing your retreat. This is especially dangerous in the last level of the vaults, where large numbers of monsters can approach you at once.
• Escape via teleportation spells is automatically blocked in the Heart Chamber of Akulakhan under Red Mountain in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. As Dagoth Ur memorably puts it: "What a grand and intoxicating innocence. How can you be so naive? There is no escape. No Recall or Intervention can work in this place."
• In Empire at War, having Grand Moff Tarkin involved in a battle as a Hero Unit on your side disables your Retreat command, due to his (ultimately) suicidal overconfidence in the Empire's overwhelming firepower.
• Eye of the Beholder. When the Player Character party first enters the sewers below the city of Waterdeep, the entrance collapses behind them, forcing them to go through the rest of the adventure in order to escape.
• Genshin Impact: In the Interlude Chapter "Perilous Trail" the Traveler, Paimon, Yelan, Yanfei, Itto, and Shinobu accidentally stumble into "the Chasm's Bed", a hidden location at the bottom of the Chasm. As an Eldritch Location, the entrance hole is "gone" as soon as they land, and the cavern's layout seems to be actively changing to make them lost inside. It's also hard to track the flow of time inside, as their bodies don't seem to suffer from hunger, thirst or drowsiness, but they become mentally drained. Only by discovering a magical device inside it that they have a chance to escape. Of course, you can leave it anytime by using a Teleport Waypoint before the plot ends.
• Paper Mario: Sticker Star lets you run from every boss fight...except the final battle against Bowser, meaning that if you don't have the right stickers to take him down, you've got to either reset the software or intentionally lose the fight.
• In Pokémon:
  • Certain moves have the effect of "binding" ^ExamplesFire Spin, Whirlpool, Sand Tomb, Infestation the opponent for a few turns. Starting second generation, one effect is that they can't be switched out and you can't escape battle.
  • "Mean Look" and "Block" are non-damaging moves that prevent the opponent from switching out and escaping battle.
  • Starting third generation, Pokémon have abilities. An ability called "Shadow Tag" prevents the opponent from retreating their Pokémon or escaping battle. The "Arena Trap" ability has the same effect for Pokémon who can take damage from Ground-type moves, and "Magnet Pull" has this effect on Steel-type Pokémon.
  • The move "Ingrain" causes the user to recover some health each turn, at the price of not being able to retreat or escape battle.
  • The move "No Retreat" raises all the user's stats by 1 but prevents the user from switching out or fleeing.
• The Stanley Parable:
  • In the Apartment Ending, the Narrator railroads you into participating by sealing you into a room with nothing but a ringing phone, leaving you with no choice but to answer it. In the event that you don't just unplug the phone, you'll be transported to Stanley's apartment, and if you try to leave by the outside corridor, the Narrator just conjures up a wall to block the exit.
    Narrator: Sorry, but you're in my story now.
  • In the Countdown Ending, trying to activate the mind control facility for yourself only results in the extremely petulant Narrator activating the facility's self-destruct system and sealing the exits, leaving you running from button to button in a futile attempt to save yourself before the timer runs out, as nothing in the room can stop the sequence or allow you to escape.
  • In The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe, the Skip Button Ending inflicts this on the Narrator for a change. Having decided to create a skip button in order to stave off negative reviews, he lets you test it, only to find that the more you use the button, the more time passes before you return to reality... and due to factors beyond the Narrator's control, the door you entered through has vanished, leaving you with nothing else to do but to press the skip button over and over again, leaving the Narrator trapped alone for progressively longer periods of time until his mind finally snaps.

Web Animation

• Turnabout Jackpot: The door to the emergency exit gets its handle broken off on the VIP floor, forcing the guests to evacuate to the roof when the fire alarm goes off.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • During "The Cave Of Two Lovers", the characters get trapped by an unexpected cave-in that blocks their exit.
  • During "The Day of Black Sun", this happens when the Fire Nation destroys the invading forces' submarines, forcing most of the troops to surrender instead.
  • This seems to happen in "The Boiling Rock" when the hot air balloon becomes non-functional as an exit strategy. Turns out this was anticipated.
• Rick and Morty: Rick's Portal Gun is a frequent victim of this. The worst instance is when it becomes entirely inoperable during the climax of season 5, forcing the duo to wait for weeks until rescue.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: Played for Laughs in the episode "Chum Bucket Supreme." When Patrick thinks too hard, his brain literally starts to burn up. It then cuts to a Mental World, where a bunch of Patricks are trying to escape. They think that the door is jammed and that there is no way out...even though the door is pull and not push.
• Transformers: Animated: When Prowl falls under the control of parasitic Space Barnacles in "Nature Calls", Sari comes up with a plan to trap him in the mines long enough for her and Bumblebee to get help from the other Autobots. Unfortunately, Bumblebee misinterprets Sari's instructions by luring Prowl into the mine and then sealing the entrance to the inside, thus trapping them both with the infected Prowl.

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