{"id":6548,"date":"2011-11-29T00:23:54","date_gmt":"2011-11-29T07:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=6548"},"modified":"2011-11-29T00:25:32","modified_gmt":"2011-11-29T07:25:32","slug":"trope-tuesday-scarpia-ultimatum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/trope-tuesday-scarpia-ultimatum\/","title":{"rendered":"Trope Tuesday: Scarpia Ultimatum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How far would you go to save the one you love? \u00a0Would you sacrifice your life? \u00a0Suffer an\u00a0irreparable\u00a0blow to your reputation? \u00a0Or would you sleep with your lover&#8217;s would-be killer?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/ScarpiaUltimatum\" target=\"_blank\">Scarpia Ultimatum<\/a> is when the villain threatens to kill the hero (or, alternately, a basket full of kittens) unless the romantic interest gives him some sort of \u00a0sexual favor or gratification. \u00a0It doesn&#8217;t have to explicitly involve the physical act, though if it does, it tends to take the story <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil\" target=\"_blank\">in a very dark direction<\/a>. \u00a0G-rated examples of this trope tend to revolve around marriage or some sort of emotional commitment instead.<\/p>\n<p>The standoff can end in one of the following ways:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The romantic interest submits to the villain&#8217;s demands. \u00a0Since the ultimatum involves a fundamental betrayal of fidelity, <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/DefiledForever\" target=\"_blank\">this rarely ends well<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>The romantic interest decides <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/YouCanKeepHer\" target=\"_blank\">she&#8217;s not all that interested in the hero<\/a> after all. \u00a0Alternately, she\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/ShootTheHostage\" target=\"_blank\">does the villain&#8217;s job for him<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>One of the side characters offers to go <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/TakeMeInstead\" target=\"_blank\">in the romantic interest&#8217;s place<\/a>, and the villain consents. \u00a0IIRC, something like this happened in Enchanted.<\/li>\n<li>The romantic interest submits to the villains demands, but the hero escapes and rescues her <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/JustInTime\" target=\"_blank\">at the last minute<\/a>. \u00a0Can be difficult to pull off, since it basically consists of having your cake and eating it too.<\/li>\n<li>The romantic interest comes up with <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/TakeAThirdOption\" target=\"_blank\">a third option<\/a> that saves the hero without forcing her to give herself up to the villain. \u00a0By far, this is the most common solution.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>At the heart of this standoff is the fact that both choices involve a betrayal. \u00a0If the romantic interest refuses, she lets the hero die. \u00a0If she submits, she becomes unfaithful. \u00a0Even if the standoff is over a basket full of kittens, it almost always involves a choice <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/SadisticChoice\" target=\"_blank\">between two morally reprehensible options<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>My favorite example of this trope is from Phantom of the Opera, where the Phantom forces Christine to choose between her freedom and Raoul&#8217;s llife. \u00a0She takes the third option and kisses the Phantom, making him have compassion on her because no one else had ever shown him such affection. \u00a0What makes this a <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/SugarWiki\/MomentOfAwesome\" target=\"_blank\">crowning moment of awesome<\/a>, for me at least,\u00a0is the way that it empowers Christine without doing anything to diminish Raoul. \u00a0He shows himself willing to make a truly <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/HeroicSacrifice\" target=\"_blank\">heroic sacrifice<\/a>, while she proves that love is more powerful than violence.<\/p>\n<p>As a way to add a moral dilemma to your story, this trope is highly effective. \u00a0The stakes are high, the options are limited, and the moral choices are far from black and white. \u00a0If your characters do take a third option, however, it should probably make some sort of commentary on the ethical questions raised&#8211;otherwise, it&#8217;ll probably come across as an <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/AssPull\" target=\"_blank\">***-pull<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How far would you go to save the one you love? \u00a0Would you sacrifice your life? \u00a0Suffer an\u00a0irreparable\u00a0blow to your reputation? \u00a0Or would you sleep with your lover&#8217;s would-be killer? Scarpia Ultimatum is when the villain threatens to kill the hero (or, alternately, a basket full of kittens) unless the romantic interest gives him some&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/trope-tuesday-scarpia-ultimatum\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Trope Tuesday: Scarpia Ultimatum<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[111,636,658,257,641,565,626,522],"class_list":["post-6548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ethical-dilemmas","tag-morality","tag-phantom-of-the-opera","tag-sex","tag-trope-tuesday","tag-tropes-and-cliches","tag-tvtropes","tag-villains","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-1HC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6548"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6554,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6548\/revisions\/6554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}