History Main / DamselOutOfDistress

* In ''Literature/TheWellAtTheWorldsEnd'', Ralph learns that Ursula has been captured by the cruel Lord Gandolf of Utterbol for use as a SexSlave. Ralph travels hundreds of miles in order to rescue her. Before he reaches her, Ursula escapes, disguised in Gandolf's nephew's armor. They find each other in the wood near Utterbol.

*** Leia's first appearance may result in her being captured to eventually be rescued, but in between giving the Death Star plans to some droids, she's a much better shot than the stormtroopers who died trying to capture her.

** ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'': When Padme faces execution alongside Anakin and Obi-Wan, she gets out of her handcuffs ''before'' the two Jedi and begins fighting back!
*** Earlier in the film, she balks at the thought of going into hiding, refusing to hide in the face of two assassination attempts. Her justification for getting captured in the first place was, while her protector was told to stay out of the matter, he was also told to stay with her... and she's going. Later, when she gets out of her handcuffs, she uses her chains to beat the monster to near death, something neither guy ever did.
** She also led the charge against her home planet's invasion and demanding (and succeeding) in getting the Chancellor of the Republic to step down over his fecklessness in the whole situation. While being only 14 years old!

* ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'': The teenaged [[Characters/MonsterVerseMadisonRussell Madison Russell]] who's been kidnapped by the human BigBadWannabe alongside her mother ([[spoiler:actually Madison's mother [[EvilAllAlong was in cahoots with him the whole time]]]]) naturally appears to be a damsel. However, after Madison [[spoiler:has her HeelRealization and decries her mother as [[YouMonster a monster]]]], it becomes apparent that loyalty to her mother and not knowing what she could do to help save the world were the only things holding Madison back. In the lead-up to the FinalBattle, Madison sneaks around the human bad guys, steals the ORCA, escapes the bad guys' hidden base and heads out on foot (implicitly helped by her mother's survivalist training), [[spoiler:using the ORCA to draw King Ghidorah to Boston at great personal risk to herself]].

** In ''WesternAnimation/CinderellaATwistInTime'', Cinderella gets into physical action in order to save Prince Charming, Anastasia, and everyone in the kingdom from Lady Tremaine and Drisella's time-traveling spell crimes.

* ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'': In season 21's "Must Be Held Accountable," Rollins is kidnapped by a father unhappy with the way his case ended. She ends her own hostage situation by gaining the upper hand when he's distracted. She steals his own gun, handcuffs him, and hauls him into the precinct ''herself'' while her squad is frantically looking for her.

* Lois Lane makes a return to this trope in ''Film/ManOfSteel'', given her ActionSurvivor status. She gets into danger a lot, but usually she tries to fight her way out of it and does rather well considering the people she's up against are nigh-invulnerable superpowered aliens. She's even able to [[spoiler: fight her way out of Zod's spacecraft using a Kryptonian gun, with some help from the [=AI=] Jor-El]].

* In the first ''Film/MenInBlack'' movie, Dr. Laurel Weaver is kidnapped by Edgar the bug, who attempts to take her with him so he can eat her and feed her to his family as well while climbing to his flying saucer to flee Earth. Laurel has none of it, breaks free from Edgar's grip, and jumps into a nearby tree, fiercely clinging to one of its branches to avoid falling. She eventually does fall, but is unharmed, and manages to get a hold of Jay's MIB gun which she quickly uses to blast the surviving half of the bug into oblivion.
* ''Film/MirrorMirror'': Due to her dislike of the {{damsel in distress}} trope, Snow White refuses to be one, mentioning she has read many stories in which the damsel has to be saved by her prince, but she doesn't want that to happen. So she deliberately locks Alcott inside the dwarfs' house, then goes off to save ''herself'' from the Beast.

* During the climax of ''Film/MuppetsMostWanted'', [[spoiler:Constantine takes Miss Piggy hostage and drags her into a helicopter to make a getaway with her. As the other Muppets scramble to catch up, she takes advantage of Constantine's lack of attention and breaks through the ropes around her wrists. With her hands free, it takes her all of a few seconds to KO him. "You may be the world's most dangerous frog, ''but you're still a frog!''"]]
** Similarly, in ''Film/TheMuppetMovie'', Doc Hopper has his men kidnap Piggy at one point, and she actively fights back while captured- evidently, none of them were expecting that.
* ''{{Film/Ophelia}}'': When her fiancé [[AttemptedRape forces himself on her]], Ophelia rescues herself by kneeing him in the groin, then hitting him on the head with a torch. She then proceeds to feign madness and pretend to drown herself to free herself from Claudius, before travelling alone over miles of countryside to find refuge in a convent.

* Princess Zelda from ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfZelda1989'' animated series preceded all the game installments in this department. There were more episodes featuring her battling alongside Link wielding [[ArcherArchetype a bow and arrow]] than there were of Link rescuing her and oftentimes she rescued herself before he showed up.

* In [=McCaffrey=]'s ''Literature/DragonridersOfPern'', Lessa is this in ''spades''. The sole survivor when her family is massacred by the tyrant Fax, she dresses in rags and ashes and pretends to be an elderly servant. With her psychic powers, she controls the other servants to commit little errors and lapses that, over the next ten years, ruin the castle and its environs, and ultimately the entire Hold; the idea being that Fax will renounce it, then she can reveal herself and take over. She is a literal Cinderella who needs no prince to rescue her. And she starts doing this when she is ''[[LittleMissBadass ten years old]]''.

* ''Franchise/{{Shrek}}'' has Princess Fiona. She seems to be every cliché about a Princess in need of rescue, until she meets somebody REALLY ANNOYING. She goes downright [[Film/TheMatrix Trinity]] when she's in a situation that's at all reasonable to handle herself. She didn't stay because she was an unarmoured woman; she stayed because she wanted to. She could only find true love by being rescued. ''WesternAnimation/ShrekForeverAfter'' gives us an AlternateTimeline where Shrek never came. ''Fiona saved herself and became a resistance fighter.''

* ''WesternAnimation/RockAndRule'': Angel is so effectively resistant to Mok's will that she escapes his clutches, has to be forcibly recaptured and dragged back, and finally shackled on stage ''and'' hooked up to Mok's keyboard to make her sing at all.

* ''WesternAnimation/BarbieAsThePrincessAndThePauper'' has a two-fold example in Anneliese and Erika:
** Anneliese does this twice: when kidnapped by Nick and Nack on Preminger's orders, she escapes them by dressing up her cat in a blanket to look like a BedsheetGhost, pretending to be afraid of it, and then letting the blanket drop on them and fleeing on their horse while they panic about the "ghost". Later, when she and Julian are trapped in the mines, she gets the idea of using flooding water from the rocks and a barrel to float them up to the top of the mine shaft.
** Erika, when imprisoned for pretending to be Anneliese so her engagement to King Dominick could continue, uses her singing to lull the guard of her cell into sleep so she can steal his keys and break herself out. She encounters another guard on her way out; fortunately for her, it turns out to be Dominick.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheBookOfLife'': Maria doesn't take kindly to being taken captive by bandit king Chakal. She ends up breaking free of his clutches and joining the fight alongside her childhood friends Manolo and Joaquin.
* From ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6'', the heroes get captured in a massive swarm of Yokai's microbot. Honey Lemon frees herself with her weapons, and Gogo frees herself by spinning herself out of the swarm.
* In ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'', when the Beast truly frightens Belle in the West Wing and seems to be an actual threat to her safety, she runs from the castle. When cornered by a pack of wolves, Belle tries to outride them on Phillipe, smashes several against a tree, and, when knocked off her horse, starts beating them back with a stick. And near the end of the movie, when Gaston tries to have her father imprisoned in an asylum unless she marries him, she uses the magic mirror to prove her father's sanity. Even after she's locked in the basement as a result, she still can be seen trying to poke a window open with a stick.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Cinderella}}'', even after she's locked in her room by Lady Tremaine and when the mice failed to fend away Lucifer, Cinderella ordered the birds to fetch Bruno, who is the only one who can stop Lucifer and save everyone, so they can work together to free herself from her room and stop the Grand Duke from leaving.
** Also, in the third film, Cinderella gets into physical action in order to save Prince Charming, Anastasia, and everyone in the kingdom from Lady Tremaine and Drisella's time-traveling spell crimes.
* In the second film of ''WesternAnimation/TheSwanPrincess'' franchise, Princess Odette’s role of a damsel was ''actually'' taken by Queen Uberta, as she’s the one that ended up being captured by Clavius and that is how Odette help Prince Derek and three animals films to rescue Uberta from Clavius.
* ''WesternAnimation/RaggedyAnnAndAndyAMusicalAdventure'': Babette spends the early bits of the movie as a typical DamselInDistress, captured by the pirate captain. Near the end, however, she's revealed to have overthrown him and taken command of his ship, much to the shock of her would-be rescuers.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSuperMarioBrosMovie'', Peach’s role of a damsel was ''actually'' taken by Luigi, as he’s the one that ended up being abducted by Bowser and that is how Princess Peach would help Mario, Toad, Donkey Kong and the other Kongs would work together to rescue Luigi (and the other prisoners) from Bowser and his cronies.

* While they still end these sequences rescued in some way, Mary Jane in ''Film/SpiderMan3'' and Gwen Stacy in ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan'' manage to protect themselves from danger during the climax beforehand.

** Ella Brown from ''Literature/JustElla'', who realizes being engaged to PrinceCharming isn't all it's cracked up to be and breaks herself out of a dungeon.

* ''Literature/ThePrincessWeiYang'': Wei Yang uses her wits to foil almost all the plots against her. And if that doesn't work, she won't hesitate to fight back against anyone stupid enough to attack her.
* Calynn, and possibly Aurora in ''Literature/GatheringTheEnchanted''. Sure, they look and act like damsels but they both nearly kill someone in both of their first appearances.
* Karyn gets a few of these moments in ''Literature/TheHowling1977'':
** {{Subverted|trope}} when Max rapes her at the start; she makes a valiant effort to fight him off, hitting, kicking and scratching him, but he overpowers her easily and she can't fight anymore after he slugs her in the stomach, winding her and causing her to miscarry.
** When a werewolf gets too close to her house, Karyn shoots at it with a shotgun and manages to drive it off after wounding its ear, though she notes the werewolf isn't as severely hurt as it should've been and she's left feeling more unnerved than ever by the encounter.
** Played straight in the novel's climax. After realising how much danger she's in, Karyn calls Chris and begs him to pick her up from Drago, also urging him to bring a gun and silver bullets. When she's attacked by a werewolf at her house, Karyn takes Roy's truck and tries to flee in it, though as she doesn't know how to drive she ends up crashing the car and has to run for help. Upon learning [[spoiler:everyone in Drago is a werewolf]], she ends up back the house and does her best to [[ProtectThisHouse barricade herself inside, armed with a shotgun]], buying time for Chris to arrive. She helps him hold off the werewolves with a flaming torch and silver bullets until they can make it to his car and manages to shoot [[spoiler:Marcia]] in the head when she attacks her.
%%* Zula in ''Literature/{{Reamde}}''.
* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': In Even Hand, Justine TookALevelInBadass when she [[spoiler:freed the prisoners, including a young child, from a powerful Fomor Wizard then swam to safety with the child, all on her own]].

* ''[[Literature/OnTheRun Kidnapped]]'': Meg repeatedly escapes from her abductors (although they keep recapturing her) or leaves behind clues that help people find her, and plays a major role in her own eventual rescue.
* ''Literature/TheSilmarillion''/''Literature/BerenAndLuthien'': Lúthien Tinúviel, an Elven princess who falls in love with the mortal Beren. When her father finds out, he sends Beren on an impossible quest and imprisons her. Time for her lover to rescue her? Not quite! She escapes by her own means (twice), then rescues Beren, who has also been imprisoned in the meantime... by none other than [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Sauron]], who Lúthien defeats almost single-handedly. Then she helps Beren fulfill his quest (and does most of the work, really, confronting the legendarium's equivalent of Satan by herself). It's interesting to note that Lúthien was an homage to Tolkien's wife, Edith Tolkien, while Beren was basically an AuthorAvatar.
* Ekaterin Vorsoisson in ''Literature/{{Komarr}}''. She's a demure, ladylike young mom kidnapped by terrorists, who [[spoiler:hijacks a crane and smashes their superweapon to bits with it]].
* ''Literature/TheSwordOfSaintFerdinand'': When Elvira becomes imprisoned in the tower of a castle, she quickly makes a rope using her room's sheets and curtains, slides out of the window, climbs down the tower despite the strong wind and the low night-time visibility, and flees.
* In Creator/PoulAnderson's "Literature/TimeLag", Elva's position as prisoner does not prevent her weaseling concessions out of Bors, and at the end, she [[spoiler:casually orders them to take Bors into the corridors and shoot him]].

* ''Literature/KindlingAshes'': [[spoiler: Giselle]] is captured by raiders and bound hand and foot, yet she rescues herself [[spoiler: by spooking them into thinking that Baltair possessed one of them and then sticks her hands against a campfire to burn away the ropes]]. By the time she's done, she notes that rescuers have arrived.

** ''[[Literature/AMagesPower A Mage's Power]]'': Zigzagged this trope with Kasile. She easily handles the mooks that have come to abduct her, but their leader subdues her just as easily. Eric comes to rescue her but by the time he arrives, she's loose and on the verge of escape. In the end, [[spoiler: she follows the outlaw force that composes her official rescue party]]. Two books later in ''Literature/ManaMutationMenace'', she falls victim to both a HypnotizeTheCaptive plot and a demonically possessed dragon golem. [[spoiler: She needed aid in the form of an ArmorPiercingQuestion to overcome the first and beat the second on her own]].

* Anne [=McCaffrey=]'s ''Literature/{{Restoree}}'' was apparently written in response to all those early SF Damsels desperate for the hero to rescue them. Sara, TheHeroine, is no {{Action Hero}}ine but she is able to talk and think her own way out of trouble and on one memorable occasion takes a heavy metal hairbrush to a drunken thug who has kidnapped her.
* And in [=McCaffrey=]'s ''Literature/DragonridersOfPern'', Lessa is this in ''spades''. The sole survivor when her family is massacred by the tyrant Fax, she dresses in rags and ashes and pretends to be an elderly servant. With her psychic powers, she controls the other servants to commit little errors and lapses that, over the next ten years, ruin the castle and its environs, and ultimately the entire Hold; the idea being that Fax will renounce it, then she can reveal herself and take over. She is a literal Cinderella who needs no prince to rescue her. And she starts doing this when she is ''[[LittleMissBadass ten years old]]''.
* ''Literature/JoePickett'': In ''Endangered'', Liv is captured and held captive by the Cates clan. When Joe finds out where she is being held and comes to rescue her, he finds she has already escaped and he arrives just in time to prevent her from murdering her former captors.

* ''Literature/YoungSherlockHolmes'': In ''Death Cloud'', Holmes finishes dealing with BigBad Baron Maupertuis and goes to rescue Virginia who is being attacked by TheDragon Mr Surd. However, when he gets to her, he finds that Virginia has already knocked Mr Surd out and was the point of coming to rescue him.
* From Creator/DanielleLJensen: Multiple:
** ''Literature/MaledictionTrilogy'': Cecile de Troyes. She's seventeen and slight of build, but she is also intelligent, clever, has an older brother who taught her how to pick locks with a hairpin - not to mention a powerful witch, which means that more often than not she can get out of trouble on her own.
** ''Literature/TheBridgeKingdomArchives'': Lara is assumed by everyone to be a typical woman from her own nation of Maridrina, that is meek, timid, and good only for bedding and raising children. However, she is a [[TrainingFromHell trained]] fighter and spy and even comes to her husband Aren's rescue more than once.
* Probably Sophy Kratides in the Literature/SherlockHolmes short story "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter" - the official story is that her kidnappers got into an argument and killed each other, but Holmes suspects otherwise.
* The ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' {{Prequel}} book ''The Andalite Chronicles'' kicks off as the [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Andalites]] Elfangor and Arbron board a [[TheGreys Skrit Na]] ship that just left Earth. There they meet [[ActionGirl Loren]], a teenage abductee who was in the process of threatening her captors with a Dracon beam. (The other prisoner, [[TheQuisling Chapman]], was cowering.)
* ''Literature/TheElderEmpire'': ''Of Shadow and Sea'' ends with [[SuperSoldier Meia]] getting captured, and a ransom note being sent to her friends. Shera doesn't even bother reading it.
-->'''Scout:''' Well? Will we negotiate?\\
'''Shera:''' Negotiate? They let Meia onto their ship. They're already dead.

* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Literature/FeetOfClay'', a gang of thugs new to the city make the mistake of raiding [[GoodGuyBar the Watch's pub]], and then compound their error by taking [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Angua]] hostage. They realise that subsequent negotiations aren't going as expected, but don't grasp ''why'' until it's too late.
-->'''Carrot''': I hope you're not going to kill anyone.\\
'''Thug''': That's up to us!\\
'''Carrot''': Sorry, was I talking to you?
* In ''Literature/TheInvisibleLibrary'' and its sequels, Irene, a young agent of [[MagicLibrary The Library]], is often underestimated by both friend and foe, but is quite capable in both spycraft and [[RealityWarper The Language]], and takes full advantage of her apparent helplessness to get the better of her captors. In later books, she is forced to get much more creative, or [[DamselInDistress get rescued by her teammates]] when she becomes more highly-regarded and well-known, leading to enemies taking extra precautions with her.
* In the ''{{Series/Firefly}}'' novel ''Carnival'', Zoe doesn’t wait around to be rescued when she and Book are captured. By the time Wash and the crew get the ransom money and Mal attempts a rescue, she and Book have freed themselves.

* In the third ''[[Literature/TheWheelOfTime Wheel of Time]]'' book, Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne are held captive in the Stone of Tear by the Black Ajah. Though [[DePower shielded from the One Power]], by entering [[DreamLand Tel'aran'rhiod]] they manage to find a way to put their abductors out of commission and weaken their hold over them. Just when they're about to find a way to escape their cell, [[GuileHero Mat]] and [[TheAtoner Juilin]] open their cell door from the outside, having come to rescue them. The girls are befuddled to see them here, given that they had no idea Mat was even in Tear – let alone in the legendary impregnable fortress of the Stone – and that Juilin was the one who had sold them out to the Black Ajah in the first place. Nynaeve [[TalkToTheFist punches the terrified Black Ajah sister, who had been guarding them, in the face and knocks her out]] in order to get her powers back, and then [[TheParalyzer holds Mat in a lock of Air]] to tell him off for his reckless behavior. Mat, of course, and perhaps understandably so, grumbles about [[ComplainingAboutRescuesTheyDontLike the ungrateful reception of his rescue]].

** Deconstructed in ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan'': when Venom attacks Rio at her workplace to try and find Spider-Man, Miles arrives to fight him [[CurbStompBattle only to start losing badly]]. Rio ''immediately'' grabs a fallen security guard’s gun and opens fire on Venom to get him away from her son... [[ShootingSuperman but it does absolutely nothing]]. [[spoiler:Then Venom, still dominating the battle, gets annoyed with her shooting and ''stabs her with his CombatTentacles''. Miles turns the fight around and defeats him just in time for his mother to die in his arms.]] Badass Damsel or not, [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome Rio was still a normal human caught in the middle of a battle between superhuman beings]].

* ''Film/ItsAWonderfulKnife'': Winnie and then Bernie as well manages to escape the Angel Killer on multiple occasions through bravery, quick thinking or simply fast reactions. Both are just seemingly ordinary teenage girls.

* In the second film of ''WesternAnimation/TheSwanPrincess'' franchise, Princess Odette’s role of a damsel was ''actually'' taken by Queen Uberta, as she’s the one that ended up being captured by Clavius and that is when Odette help Prince Derek and three animals films to rescue Uberta from Clavius.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSuperMarioBrosMovie'', Peach’s role of damsel was ''actually'' taken by Luigi, as he’s the one that ended up being abducted by Bowser and that is when Princess Peach would help Mario, Toad, Donkey Kong and the other Kongs would work together to rescue Luigi (and the other prisoners) from Bowser and his cronies.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Cinderella}}'', even after she's locked in her room by Lady Tremaine and when the mice failed to fend away Lucifer, Cinderella ordered the birds to fetch Bruno, who is the only one who can stop Lucifer and save everyone, so they can work together to free herself from her room.

* ''Film/BatmanForever'' gave audiences Dr. Chase Meridian (Creator/NicoleKidman), who could be seen as an AuthorsSavingThrow for the female lead in the first ''Film/{{Batman|1989}}'': the straight-up DamselInDistress (Vicki Vale). This becomes clear when Bruce Wayne pays her a visit and becomes concerned when he hears feminine gasps and grunts coming from her office. Thinking she's being attacked and finding the door locked, he kicks it in - only to find that Dr. Meridian was just practicing her boxing skills with a punching bag. (To compound Bruce's embarrassment, Chase then makes a sarcastic comment about how he'll now have to buy her a new door.) Later on, when she and Bruce are being attacked by Two-Face's gang, Chase punches out one of the {{Mooks}} when he tries to grab her - although she is taken hostage moments later.