History Main / TheBait

* In one {{Flashback}} episode of ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'', Team Satisfaction set a trap to ambush the Magician's Four. Unfortunately for Crow, he has to be the bait. (It isn't revealed who decided he'd get that role. ''Fortunately'' for him, the plan worked.)

* ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'': As part of the GambitPileup during the assassination tournament ComicBook/RedRobin decides to use himself as bait since he knows he's been made a target and calls [[ComicBook/{{Batgirl}} Cassandra Cain]] for backup, and to pretend to kill him in order to "win" the tournament after rescuing him from the other participants.
* In ''ComicBook/SinCity'', Marv draws Kevin out into a series of traps by firebombing his house. Dwight draws Manute and his men out to a back alley by using Miho's archery skills.

** Superman and ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} do this in ''ComicBook/WarWorld''. Superman volunteers to test how powerful Warworld's missiles are. Later on, he keeps the satellite's defense systems occupied while Kara gets ready to attack.
** In ''ComicBook/StarfiresRevenge'', the eponymous Queenpin poses in society and fashion magazines as the mysterious and rich beauty Starfire to lure Supergirl out and into a trap.

* ''VideoGame/TalesSeries''

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* In ''Anime/MazingerZ'', often Kouji volunteers to be The Bait. Sayaka, too. Boss is more willing or more reluctant to play bait depending on the situation.

* In ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'', this is the standard operating procedure, where one group distracts the titan and the second group (usually more skilled) goes for the kill. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't.
** ''[[TheAce Mikasa]]'' ends up being decoy for the Female Titan as [[WorldsStrongestMan Levi]] demonstrates why he deserves his title of Humanity's Strongest.
** Armin uses this to deal with the titans invading the supply room.
** This is the primary mission of the surviving soldiers in the Battle of Trost, to lure the titans to the opposite side of the city so the elite team can plug the wall.
** This turns out to be [[spoiler:Eren's ''true'' role in the 57th Expedition, with Erwin secretly using him to lure out titan shifters infiltrating the military]].
* ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'': The Major uses First Lieutenant Rip Van Winkle as bait to draw Alucard away from London, trapping him aboard the ship she commandeered using his weakness regarding running water to keep the powerful vampire away from London as the Major's forces make their assault on the Hellsing headquarters and London itself.
* ''Manga/QueenMillennia'': Yayoi figures that his uncle knew Hajime would be targeted, but left him be, expecting the Millennial Thieves would kidnap him and Hajime would point them to the Observatory where they can be caught. How to rescue Hajime afterward was barely considered.
* ''Literature/SwordArtOnline'': Alice, after learning that the BigBad is specifically targeting her, offers to serve as the bait for his forces. Alice's commander, mentor and father figure Bercouli agrees, but insists on accompanying her.
* ''Literature/YakitoriSoldiersOfMisfortune'': Unit K-321 is about to be destroyed by a SpiderTank when it gets blown up by SpaceMarines, who mockingly congratulate the [[RedshirtArmy 'Yakitori']] for acting as decoys. However the tank is still active and opens fire on the marines, so the K-321 uses ''them'' as decoys so they can sneak up and destroy the tank for good. Later they're pinned down by another spider tank and Akira points out that someone has to act as bait again, as there are no friendly units nearby. He's annoyed when [[GotVolunteered everyone assumes that as he came up with the idea, then he should be the bait]]. They destroy the tank only for another tank to pin them down, whereupon the same marines from earlier turn up in {{Awesome Personnel Carrier}}s for a BigDamnHeroes.

* In Creator/RobertEHoward's ''Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian'' story "Literature/TheDevilInIron", Octavia is used to lure Conan.

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': In "[[Recap/CSINYS06E12 Criminal Justice]]," Lindsay protects a witness from a murderous perp by going to the young woman's apartment at night, dressing in a bathrobe with her hair in a towel, and watching tv on the couch with her back to the door. When the knife-wielding assailant breaks in and tries to sneak up behind her, she jumps up with her service weapon drawn on him.

* In ''Series/PrettyGuardianSailorMoon'', Sailor Venus takes on this role for much of the show. [[spoiler:She sees this as a good use of her life because she has a terminal illness and knows she'll reincarnate before long anyway]].

* ''Series/WellingtonParanormal''

* ''VideoGame/DantesInferno'' [[spoiler:Beatrice. The whole "drag one innocent human's soul into hell" thing was just a means of getting the ultimate killer in the Crusades, strong enough to kill a grim reaper after dying, to inadvertently break Lucifer's chains scattered around Hell]].

* Played with in ''VisualNovel/DoubleHomework''. The break-in of Dennis’s apartment requires that everyone knows when he’ll be out. The group enlists Amy, Dennis’s favorite girl in the summer school class, to talk to him and find out when he won’t be home.

* ''VisualNovel/DoubleHomework'': Played with. The break-in of Dennis’s apartment requires that everyone knows when he’ll be out. The group enlists Amy, Dennis’s favorite girl in the summer school class, to talk to him and find out when he won’t be home.

* ''Webcomic/TheRemarkableRabbitBoy'': The character Foxline gets her bones broken by the powerful villain Bloodarm, and figures out that the only reason Bloodarm didn't instantly kill her instead is because he wanted to use her as bait to lure out the main character, Rabbit Boy, who Foxline had ordered to hide.*

* Because pretty much everyone in ''Webcomic/NerfNow'' thinks that GirlOnGirlIsHot, Chun-Li and Kammy are able to use themselves as bait in [[http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/578 this comic.]]
* In ''Webcomic/{{Nodwick}}'', this role is in a henchman's job description.
* In ''Webcomic/TheFarSideOfUtopia'' Peter is clearly trying to bait the people looking for him to come after him, as he had no other reason to use his real name (he can clearly make fake ones, since he did for Mium).

'''Schlock:''' ''[into comm]'' Sir, the bait is panicking.

* In ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'' episode "[[Recap/DuckTalesS1E17LaunchpadsFirstCrash Launchpad's First Crash]]" a matriarchal tribe hunts giant crabs using their diminutive men as a bait. When Scrooge and Launchpad arrive, all the men have just had it and left, thus amazons use Scrooge and Launchpad. In the end Granta tells that men and women reconciled with each other and now take turns as a bait.
* In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' episode "Final Cut", where Society of Assassins member Mutro Botha persuades (okay, blackmails) Terry into helping him apprehend Curare, Botha doesn't see himself as bait for the plan, but Terry clearly does. (It ends ''very'' badly for Botha, but it's [[AssholeVictim hard for anyone to feel sorry for him.]])

* In the "King Homer" segment of the "Treehouse of Horror III" episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', Mr. Burns and Smithers bring Marge to Skull Island to use as bait for King Homer, which leads to an awkward situation for Burns when they get there:
-->'''Marge:''' Am I coming too?
-->'''Burns:''' Of course! We wouldn't dream of going ashore without the bait...Er... ing... beauty, the... bathing beauty! That's it. ''[Aside, to Smithers]'' Think I covered that rather well...
* WesternAnimation/ScoobyDoo and Shaggy usually get elected to be the live bait in catching the week's villain in a monster suit.
* The animated ''WesternAnimation/PunkyBrewster'' debut episode "Punky To The Rescue" had Margaux posed as bait to catch a supposed swamp monster that Punky thinks kidnapped Henry.

* This was the reason the villains went after [[spoiler:Kyrie]] in ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry4''. [[spoiler:They wanted to use Dante to power the Savior, but weren't quite equal to the task of capturing him, so after Agnus discovered that Nero had demonic power of his own and a relationship with Kyrie, he and Sanctus used her as bait to lure Nero into their trap so that the two of them could be used instead]].

* ''Anime/YakitoriSoldiersOfMisfortune''. Unit K-321 is about to be destroyed by a SpiderTank when it gets blown up by SpaceMarines, who mockingly congratulate the [[RedshirtArmy 'Yakitori']] for acting as decoys. However the tank is still active and opens fire on the marines, so the K-321 uses ''them'' as decoys so they can sneak up and destroy the tank for good. Later they're pinned down by another spider tank and Akira points out that someone has to act as bait again, as there are no friendly units nearby. He's annoyed when [[GotVolunteered everyone assumes that as he came up with the idea, then he should be the bait]]. They destroy the tank only for another tank to pin them down, whereupon the same marines from earlier turn up in {{Awesome Personnel Carrier}}s for a BigDamnHeroes.

Of course, [[GilliganCut the bait ends up being]] TheSmartGuy (Cue the "Why do I always have to be The Bait?" whining) or the TheHeart. Occasionally it will end up being TheLancer, which is more likely if he and TheHero are {{Rival}}s.

* ''Anime/YakitoriSoldiersOfMisfortune''. Unit K-321 is about to be destroyed by a SpiderTank when it gets blown up by SpaceMarines, who mockingly congratulate the [[RedshirtArmy 'Yakitori']] for acting as bait. However the tank is still active and opens fire on the marines, so the K-321 uses ''them'' as bait so they can sneak up and destroy the tank for good. Later they're pinned down by another spider tank and Akira points out that someone has to act as bait again, as there are no friendly units nearby. He's annoyed when [[GotVolunteered everyone assumes that as he came up with the idea, then he should be the bait]].

* Bait duty debates happen a lot on ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', and usually Xander gets the job, being as he's the ButtMonkey of the series. This was reversed at the beginning of season three: Because Buffy was "absent", the Scoobies had to work without her, and the role of bait was passed to Cordelia. Subverted when Xander and Cordelia are too busy arguing over this, they fail to notice the vampire is sneaking up on Willow.