History Main / TheDulcineaEffect

Seldom gets GenderFlip; after all, MenAreTheExpendableGender but it happens nonetheless.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* In ''Manga/DeadmanWonderland'', Ganta quickly becomes this way with apparent ShrinkingViolet Minatsuki, feeling the need to protect her with his life and break out of Deadman Wonderland together with her. However, it turns out that [[spoiler:Minatsuki is AxCrazy and ''counted on'' The Dulcinea Effect kicking in. She tried to use his protectiveness to injure him and make it easier for her to kill him. To put it in her words: "I'm sorry, but the whole virgin knight thing is fucking disgusting."]]

* In ''Manga/Reborn2004'', Tsuna is shown to be willing to die for Kyoko. He hardly ever really talks with her or knows her, and apparently the whole reason he has a crush on her in the first place was that she was the only girl that bothered talking to him in twelve months.
** His relationship with Uni too. The series seems to fully be implying a sort of Tsuna = Knight in shining armor who protects and "champions" for Uni (the DamselInDistress). Tsuna seems to like the idea - he's certainly [[LuminescentBlush blushing]] a ''lot'' every time she says anything. His decision to take her under his wing seemed to mainly be influenced by the tragic, self-sacrificing expression in her eyes.
*** Directly {{lampshade|Hanging}}d by Byakuran, who mocks Tsuna by asking him if he's trying to be Uni's "KnightInShiningArmor".

* GenderFlip example: This is how Yukari from ''Manga/{{Sekirei}}'' meets Shiina. Shiina is being chased by two sekirei who are looking to capture him and bring him back to their ashikabi to be indoctrinated into his team. Yukari interferes because she believes that pretty boys should be protected.

* Edo Phoenix in ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'' himself is slightly confused [[spoiler:when he decides to have a duel to the death with Amon Garam over a woman he doesn't much care about and only talked to once before this]] because [[WrongGenreSavvy he doesn't realize]] he's the AntiHero in a DeconstructorFleet that's made a point of demonstrating the absurdity and danger of myriad shounen and SuperHero tropes.

** In ''Literature/BreakingDawn'', [[spoiler:Renesmee]]. The plot of the latter half of the book was [[spoiler:to rally up vampires to protect this one child that none of them even know. All of them agree to put their lives in danger for Renesmee the second they see her, without any logical reason as to why they even should endanger themselves to protect someone they only just met]]. WordOfGod says that vampires are extremely apathetic and, especially those that drink human blood, feel no affection for other vampires other than the one or two that travel with them.

* ''Series/{{Angel}}'': In "Billy", Angel turns up at Lilah's door to confront her about the consequences of her evil actions. He kicks down the door and threatens her- until she steps into the light, and he sees that she has black eyes and is covered in bruises. Suddenly, Angel turns from threatening Lilah to saying he's going to go have a talk with the man who did this to her. Played with, as Lilah calls him out on it, pointing out that this sudden change of tone and outrage on her behalf is coming from someone who she knows hates her and came to see her with rather violent intentions himself.

* ''Series/{{Bones}}'': In the sixth season episode "The Finder" (a PoorlyDisguisedPilot for [[Series/TheFinder the series of the same name]]), Walter, the title character of the episode, becomes obsessed with finding out who killed a woman he only talked to for one night.
* ''Series/{{Chuck}}'' has a GenderFlip example. It may be Sarah's job to protect the Intersect, but her feelings for Chuck provide the motivation for just how seriously she takes his safety. In Season 3, she admits she fell in love with Chuck "sometime between his fixing her phone and defusing a bomb" when they first met.

** Steven sees a young woman, Anne, getting chased by guards in the first episode of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E5TheMassacre "The Massacre of Saint Bartholemew's Eve"]] and becomes immediately fixated on saving her. When the Doctor leaves the time period without doing anything to prevent the massacre, he focuses most of his grief on the fact that they'd left Anne to die.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E4TheGirlInTheFireplace "The Girl in the Fireplace"]]: The Doctor nearly gets himself TrappedInThePast without the TARDIS defending Reinette from the clockwork droids, when he's only known her for the length of a party.
** In [[Recap/DoctorWho50thPrequelTheNightOfTheDoctor "The Night of the Doctor"]], it is revealed that the Eighth Doctor's death and eventual regeneration was caused by him choosing to risk his life for a cute girl he met five seconds ago, whose name gets mentioned dramatically at the end of his list of companions as if it is the most special one of them all. It's justified in that the Eighth Doctor is one of the most innocent, optimistic and AllLovingHero incarnations of the Doctor, so it serves as a decisive BreakTheCutie for him.
** In the Tenth Doctor audio story "Dead Air", [[spoiler:the Hush's plan depends on the Doctor being willing to take a beautiful young woman onboard the TARDIS despite hardly knowing her]]. The Doctor even lampshades this in the narration. It's [[ChronicHeroSyndrome completely in character for him]].

* ''Series/MastersOfHorror'': In "Valerie on the Stairs", Rob is rather drawn to Valerie, the woman who begs him to save her from a monster, even though he knows nothing about her. [[spoiler:This is later explained to be because they're both fictional characters who were written that way. Valerie specifically has no personality attributes beyond her status as a damsel in distress because she's defined solely by her relationship to Rob.]]
* ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'': This is in full effect in the episode "[[Recap/MerlinS02E09TheLadyOfTheLake The Lady of the Lake]]". Merlin merely glimpses Freya and instantly decides he must risk everything to save her. The fact that she's being persecuted for magic use might have something to do with it, but it still fits the straight version.
* ''Series/ThePunisher2017''. In Season 2, Frank Castle has a clean slate from the authorities who have wiped his record, but risks throwing that away to help a teenage girl being attacked by Pilgrim's mercenaries. However when they discuss this trope afterwards, with Frank claiming that he wouldn't have helped her if she was a man, she suggests this is a lie and [[BloodKnight he was just looking for an excuse to get into a fight]].

* In the ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekEnterpriseS01E18RoguePlanet Rogue Planet]]", a race of shapeshifters is being hunted like animals. A member of this race transforms into a beautiful woman, meets with Captain Archer, and begs for help. Captain Archer immediately agrees to drop everything he was doing to help her and her people, acting like a man in love. T'Pol lampshades Archer's behavior by asking if he would be so eager to help if the shapeshifter came to him in the form of a man. Later, everyone finds out the alien read Archer's mind and transformed into his image of the ideal woman that he imagined when he listened to the poem "The Song of Wandering Aengus" as a child. When the day is saved, the "woman" thanks Archer and turns back to her true form, which looks like a giant slug. Archer is shocked, but they part on friendly terms.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E20Qpid Qpid]]", Q insists that Picard is still in love with Vash, a woman he knew for one day a year earlier, and proves it by trapping them in a storyline where he has to rescue her. Picard brushes off his claims, pointing out that he'd try to rescue anyone in danger.
* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E19RequiemForMethuselah Requiem for Methuselah]]", Kirk goes down to a planet where he only has four hours to obtain some material for a vaccine. He promptly falls so in love with the girl he meets down there that Spock is forced to erase her from his memory when he's left too heartbroken to go on after being forced to leave her. Even for the notoriously womanizing Kirk, this is a severe example.
* In ''Series/TenspeedAndBrownShoe'', private detective Lionel Whitney (Creator/JeffGoldblum) is prone to this with the GirlOfTheWeek. It's worth noting that a key reason he gave up his job as a stockbroker to became a detective was to live out his longstanding fantasies of being "Mark Savage", the 1940s-style private eye protagonist of the pulpy novels he devours. This trope gets him into particular trouble in "Savage Says: There's No Free Lunch" because [[spoiler: that week's Dulcinea is actually The Vamp. Even better? The novel he's working his way through at the time sees Savage similarly deceived, but it isn't until Lionel's recovering in the hospital that he finishes it and realizes how strong the Plot Parallel was]].

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* The quoted musical, ''Theatre/ManOfLaMancha'', as well as the classical novel ''Don Quixote'', upon which it was based, parody this very trope, when the self-proclaimed knight Don Quixote falls instantly in love with a beautiful damsel (in fact, a barmaid moonlighting as a prostitute) and refuses to be convinced by any means that his lady "Dulcinea" (a name he gave her, because her real name, Aldonza, was ill-fitting for a lady of her splendor) was anything less than the beautiful and virtuous lady he imagined her to be. In this particular musical, Don Quixote's high (if misguided) opinion of Aldonza eventually causes her to realize that she is not living up to her potential, and makes it her business to take more pride in herself and become her own Dulcinea.

* In the online tie-in game for the movie ''Film/{{Salt}}'', the player is led to believe that Salt is being set up by the bad guys and she needs your help to clear her name. In reality, [[spoiler:she is a Soviet mole and is using you to eliminate some loose ends. She later betrays the player to his (it's always shown as a male player) bosses in the CIA]].

* Invoked in ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'': Makoto Naegi has this in regards to Sayaka Maizono, who he has been pining for her since childhood, and he is willing to do anything to protect her during Monokuma's game of High School Life of Mutual Killing. [[spoiler:It turns out that she's using the DE as a way to frame him for murder when she tries to kill Leon so she can escape from the school, but Leon kills her before she can do so.]]
* ''VideoGame/Disgaea2CursedMemories'': while Adell's initial promise to protect and return Rozalin to her father probably doesn't raise any eyebrows at first (he's borderline LawfulStupid, and clearly feels responsible for her FallenPrincess predicament), the Dulcinea Effect becomes apparent when he [[HonorBeforeReason insists on keeping it in even the most suicidal circumstances]], and he doesn't even ''like'' [[DoesNotLikeMen girls]].
* In ''VideoGame/Disgaea3AbsenceOfJustice'', Almaz decides that the best way to impress a girl he likes is to descend into hell on a nigh-suicidal mission to defeat the Overlord -- for a girl that [[spoiler:at least as far as he knows]] ''isn't even aware of his existence''. Mao finds this all rather very silly.
* The ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' quest "In My Time of Need" involves a group of Alik'r warriors looking for a Redguard woman they claim betrayed her family and a Redguard city to the Aldmeri Dominion. The woman herself claims she spoke out against the Dominion who hired the Alik'r to hunt her down an assassinate her. The player can either play the trope straight by killing the Alik'r or defy it by luring Saadia outside Whiterun where the Alik'r will capture her.
* ''VisualNovel/Ever17'': The Kid fell in love with Coco at first sight. [[spoiler:He then spent the next 17 years of his life learning to imitate his role model Takeshi as exactly as possible. He does this based on a story that You tells him involving the personification of the perception of time. He doesn't even get the girl because by this point he looks 20 and is actually 32 while she's 14, acts about 8 and considers herself to be the girlfriend of said personification. The Drama [=CDs=] show that after the incident, he got over Coco, got a job, and [[PairTheSpares ended up with Sora]], so it seems he's all right.]]
* This trope is {{deconstructed|Trope}} in ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' with the character Emiya Shirou, who is a deeply damaged individual who is ''incapable'' of valuing his own life above those of others. No matter which route, he gets near-fatally injured trying to save Saber the very night he meets her.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'': A very short time after Cecil finds Rydia, and witnesses her summon a monster that appeared to kill his best friend Kain, he immediately throws away his career to protect Rydia by killing the troops sent by his king to arrest and execute her. This can be considered a JustifiedTrope, as he was already suffering a crisis of conscience against his kingdom of Baron due to the immoral acts the king had ordered him to commit, which included unwittingly destroying Rydia's village by delivering a deadly item there.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' has Zidane, who is trying to ''kidnap'' the princess at the start of the game. Then he becomes her escort for the rest of it. This is even part of his skill-set. He has the in-game ability 'Protect Girls.' If there's a female in the party who gets attacked, Zidane will jump in front of her and take the hit. This does not, however, prevent him from [[ChivalrousPervert grabbing the princess's butt]] while climbing a ladder.
-->'''Zidane:''' Ooh, soft...
** In ''[[VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy Duodecim]]'', talking to Zidane on the world map at one point has him say that collecting the [[MacGuffin crystals]] is a pain and he wouldn't do it if Cosmos wasn't hot. He says that he's joking, but [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII Squall]] doesn't believe him.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'': Locke is very quick to pledge his unfaltering protection to Terra and later Celes, two complete strangers who had once worked for the Empire. The reason for this is tragic. [[spoiler:He lost the love of his life, Rachel, in an Imperial attack that he wasn't there to protect her from. Terra's amnesia hits especially close because Rachel contracted amnesia as the result of a trip he took her on. Rachel's amnesia and death are his [[FailureKnight greatest failures]], and so he vows to protect Terra and Celes because he refuses to fail another woman like he did Rachel.]]

* ''VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed II'' plays this trope straight but with an added GenderFlip. Starkiller and Juno spend quite a bit of time together in the first game but their mild flirtations never seemed all that serious and were closer to crush status than genuine love. Then in the next game, without having spent any more additional time with each other, both characters are throwing themselves in front of buses to try and save the other -- Starkiller more than Juno, but she does some crazy shit too ([[spoiler:like trying to stab ''Darth Vader'' with a lightsaber!]]).

* Sasuke from ''VisualNovel/IkemenSengoku'' briefly met the female main character just before they got flung back to Japan's Sengoku era by a wormhole and got separated for four years. Despite that long period of time after their first meeting and them being total strangers who barely said three sentences to one another during that meeting, he never forgot about her and vowed to find her and do anything needed to ensure that she'd stay safe and be able to return to their original time. The MC even notes on his route that while he's a NiceGuy, that alone doesn't explain his complete devotion to protecting someone he had only about ten seconds of interaction with four years ago. However, it turns out there's a better reason for his devotion to her than just ChronicHeroSyndrome or LoveAtFirstSight -- [[spoiler:during their first meeting, she pushed him out of the way of a lightning bolt strike and while it happened so quickly that she forgot about it, he never forgot that he would have been dead if not for her quick and brave action and he vowed to repay her for it.]]
* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'':
** Justified by having the girl the player has never met being his commanding officer and possibly the key to winning the war with the Sith.
** Gender-flipped in the sequel with Visas and the Handmaiden if the player is male, and played straight with Atton and the Disciple if the player is female. Though certain later events put it in a new context.

* Several games in ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' series fall under this trope, as they show Link going off on a quest for Princess Zelda after knowing her for only a few minutes or, such as in the original ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI'' game, never having met her at all. Although, given that she's his sovereign ruler, it's probably illegal for him ''not'' to quest or something, and if he ever ''did'' say no, [[ButThouMust she'd probably just keep asking him]].
** ''VideoGame/{{The Legend of Zelda Oracle|Games}} of Ages'': Link goes and saves Impa from some attacking monsters (while he ''does'' know Impa, he doesn't seem to know her when he saves her). He then accompanies her to find the girl Impa was looking for. [[spoiler:Once they find said girl, it turns out that Impa was actually possessed by an evil sorceress, the girl was the Oracle of Ages, and the sorceress has now possessed her.]] [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Well done, Link.]]
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' subverts this as the dying Great Deku Tree explicitly tells Link to take the [[MacGuffin Kokiri Emerald]] to Hyrule Castle and speak to Princess Zelda. Once he gets there and past the guards, Zelda gives him the details about the sorcerer who cursed the Great Deku Tree to die (aka [[BigBad Ganondorf]]), explains her own prophetic dreams about Ganondorf's plans obtain the godly power of the Triforce to TakeOverTheWorld, and finally ropes him into her plan to stop Ganondorf from getting the other Sacred Stones in order to enter the Sacred Realm and get the Triforce.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'' and ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' mostly avert it. In ''Wind Waker'', Link starts his quest because [[BigBrotherInstinct his little sister was taken by a giant bird]], and finishes BecauseDestinySaysSo. ''Twilight Princess'' has Link trying to save the kids from the village; at first, he's helping Midna because she's helping him. Those first 3 dungeons are by no means short ([[DownTheDrain especially the third one]]), so by the second half of the game, he and Midna have had time to bond. Ganondorf just happens to know how to push Link's BerserkButton at the end.
*** If you look at the gender-flipped version for ''Twilight Princess'', Midna rescues [[DistressedDude Link]] from Zant's dungeon, after seeing him for five minutes. [[spoiler:It turns out that she only did so because it was foretold that he'd help her overthrow Zant, and she later apologizes for this.]]
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' averts this completely, as Zelda and Link are best friends who have actually known each other for ''years'' in that game.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' subverts this. Assuming you select the more proactive dialogue options in the opening Great Plateau section, it can seem like [[AmnesiacHero Link]] is perfectly willing to follow the lead of the unfamiliar woman's telepathic voice that greets him when he wakes up in the Shrine of Resurrection. But it turns out that he had become good friends with Zelda before losing his memories, and he's so willing to fight for her without them due to AmnesiacResonance.
* As one might garner from the page quote, this trope tends to show up a ''lot'' in video games. However, Hiro from ''VideoGame/LunarEternalBlue'' is the smack-bang-in-the-centre example of the videogame version of this trope. It's even the {{Trope Namer|s}} in Website/TheGrandListOfConsoleRolePlayingGameCliches, as seen at the top of this page.
** One might think that he only did this for Lucia because she's a mysterious beauty who he's clearly smitten with at first sight, but the manga "Lunar: Younenki no owari" shows that he will literally do this for ANY girl he met 5 minutes ago, making his more of a case of ChronicHeroSyndrome.
* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', Snake devotes himself to saving Meryl when she's only around for one boss battle before she gets shot.
** Lampshaded in one parody, [[https://youtu.be/cV_wCMsLTD8 as seen here]].
** It wasn't one-sided, either -- when the two finally meet up, Meryl tells Snake that she had been given psychotherapy to destroy her interest in men, and then not ten minutes later the boss from that one battle before she gets shot is telling Snake with his dying breath that he has "a large part" in her heart.

* ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'': Obviously, given that you're the omnibenevolent sun god and all. Issun tends to be more cynical than Ammy but is also a huge sucker for a pretty face.
** Same in ''VideoGame/{{Okamiden}}''. Your first partner, Kuni, actually believes that it is his duty as a swordsman and son of Susano to help out any damsel in distress he sees, [[MilesGloriosus despite initially being too afraid of demons to face up to them]]. Kurow also seems to display this, despite his EstablishingCharacterMoment showing him to be a bit of a jerk and possibly a criminal.
* ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'': Phoenix is a sucker for [[DamselInDistress Damsels in Distress]] in general, male or female, whether or not they have any way of paying for his services.
** Phoenix first meets Maya next to a dead body and he immediately takes her case when she's accused of murder. [[spoiler: Though it's justified as she is the younger sister of his recently deceased mentor]].
** He does the same for Lana later on (taking her case right after meeting her) and keeps defending her even when [[spoiler:the culprit starts personally threatening him]].
** In Trials and Tribulations case [[spoiler:5]], there is no evidence that [[spoiler:Godot]] had ever met [[spoiler:Maya]] before risking life and limb to protect her. He had a pretty good excuse, though: [[spoiler:she is his dead girlfriend's sister, after all. That, and the one after her was essentially his girlfriend's arch-nemesis, who was responsible for ruining Godot's life too. At the same time this is also horribly [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]]. Godot actually learned of the plot well beforehand but, rather then alerting her to the danger, he jumps at the opportunity to try and make up for being unable to protect Mia and causes a chain of events that culminate in him killing their ''mother''. By the end he admits he was more driven by his own selfishness than any real desire to protect Maya]].
** In ''VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney'''s backstory, it is revealed that Phoenix [[spoiler:adopted Trucy]] quickly after meeting her.
** Justified and averted in two instances in ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonVsAceAttorney''. Phoenix is more than willing to defend Espella from accusations of witchcraft even though he's known her for less than a week, but [[spoiler:he'd been given fake memories of knowing her for five years]]. And the second instance: when Maya is accused, Luke Triton is more than willing to testify against her.

* Leon in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2'' goes out of his way to escort and protect Ada no matter how many times she tries to ditch him. Even when Ada is being shot at, he takes a bullet for her! [[note]]Since Leon is a police officer and it was his first day, he most likely felt it was his duty to protect Ada, although it's implied he may have fallen in love with her as well.[[/note]] After Leon hears Ada is a spy for the Umbrella corporation, he refuses to believe it until Ada confirms it herself (in scenario A anyway). Since then, Leon and Ada have a "it's complicated" relationship in later games where Ada will help Leon when she can, but she will still hinder his progress if she is ordered to (though she won't harm him).

* In ''VideoGame/StarOceanTheSecondStory'', Claude winds up on an alien planet where he's absolutely not allowed to use his superior technology. The first thing he does is use that technology to save the cute blue-haired chick from a monster. [[note]]The player can TRY to kill the monster with Claude's bare hands, and in fact, Claude DOES start with GoodOldFisticuffs in the manga adaptation. Unfortunately, it does next to no good in either version, so he'll be using his awesome laser gun anyway.[[/note]]
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfDestiny2'': Mixed with JumpedAtTheCall. As soon as Reala emerges from a giant Lens, Kyle is determined to become her hero and pursues her across the continent to do so. This is often lampshaded by his adopted brother, Loni, who is also roped into the adventure as a result.
* A rare female example crops up in ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphoniaDawnOfTheNewWorld'' -- Marta is infatuated with Emil from the moment he "saves" her -- so infatuated, in fact, that she sets an ancient guardian monster to stalk him for several months, and when she does reunite with him, offers to hand herself in to be executed in order to spare his village (and his guilt). All for a guy whose name she had learned only an hour or two ago.

[[folder:Web Original]]

* Deconstructed in V6 of ''Roleplay/SurvivalOfTheFittest'': [[NiceGuy Brendan Harte]] sees two boys holding a girl hostage and threatening to kill her. Believing her to be a typical DamselInDistress, he rushes in, stabs one of the boys in the neck, and saves the girl's life. Her name was [[AxCrazy Nancy Kyle]], and once Brendan's [[SaveTheVillain fuck-up]] is spelt out to him later on, all he can do is [[LaughingMad hysterically laugh]].
* In the ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'', Stalwart declares his undying love for Fey only seconds after seeing her. To make it extra-uncomfortable, he does it in the middle of the [[SuperheroSchool Whateley Academy]] quad, while Fey's father is standing right there. Fey throws him across the quad, but he doesn't give up. His DoggedNiceGuy behavior eventually saves Fey's life, and he gets several dates with her.

* Touma succumbs to The Dulcinea Effect throughout ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex''. This is even [[LampshadeHanging discussed]] at one point by his [[HaremGenre Harem]], which is mostly made up of girls he's rescued earlier.

* GenderInverted in ''Manga/The100GirlfriendsWhoReallyReallyReallyReallyReallyLoveYou''. Kishika first meets Rentarou when she rescues him from a group of delinquents who were harassing him for a set of keychains.
* ''Manga/AkumaNoRiddle'': Tokaku is a high-school assassin who's pretty quick to risk death and openly declare her intentions to a room full of fellow killers to protect a girl she's only recently met.
** [[spoiler:Said "girl she's only recently met" actually has the ability to induce this in nearby people, whether she wants to or not. This revelation causes Tokaku to seriously question why she wants to protect Haru.]]
* In ''Literature/AriaTheScarletAmmo'', Kinji inherited this ''genetically''. It's a side effect of his SuperMode. He can't ''not'' help a girl in trouble.
* ''Literature/{{Baccano}}'':
** Jacuzzi gets a ransom note for a woman he met earlier that day. His response is to turn in himself for the money the mob put on his head. However, he's shown to be like this towards ''[[MartyrWithoutACause everyone]].'' He was, at one point, more concerned about the safety of some Russo mafia mooks than he was over the fact that said mooks were about to ''kill him''.
** Claire Stanfield, a man who insists on devoting himself completely and utterly to the first cute girl he finds that doesn't say no. Considering he's the series' resident AxCrazy SociopathicHero, [[spoiler:Chane]] now has either the most awesome or the most terrifying boyfriend in existence.
* Koyomi Araragi of ''Literature/{{Bakemonogatari}}'' suffers from this, even going so far as to risk his life to save a girl he barely knows when the sole reason she is in trouble in the first place is that she subconsciously wants to ''kill him.''
** Specifically referenced in ''Nekomonogatari (Black)'', where Araragi tries to make sense of his feelings for Hanekawa. He realizes that, rather than wanting to date her, he likes her so much that he might want to die for her instead. This is followed shortly by [[spoiler:getting himself PUNCHED IN HALF as part of a gambit to save her]].

* Touma in ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex'' succumbs to The Dulcinea Effect throughout the series. This is even [[LampshadeHanging discussed]] at one point by his [[HaremGenre Harem]], who is mostly made up of girls he's rescued earlier.
* ''Anime/{{Daimos}}'': In the first episode, Kazuya, while piloting the titular mecha robot, discovers a mysterious girl on the cliffs and falls in love with her. The mysterious woman, though amnesiac, turns out to be the Princess of the Baam-seijin, the very aliens that are warring with Planet Earth at the moment. She feels ashamed that Kazuya fell in love with her because of the fact that not only are their races warring, but her own brother, [[AlienPrince Prince]] [[LongHairedPrettyBoy Richter]], is the one heading the AlienInvasion and [[KillAllHumans genocide]] against humans. However, Kazuya tells her he loves anyway, making her very happy.

* ''Literature/{{Durarara}}'':
** Mikado is compelled to save Anri from the delinquents harassing her.
** [[ChivalrousPervert Chikage]] takes this trope to its logical extreme by being willing to risk his life for any girl ever.
** Mikado also saves Mika from Celty, no questions asked--until later.

* The central plot of ''Anime/FreedomProject'' involves the main character traveling from the Moon to the Earth - and then across the entire United States - just to meet a girl in a photograph.
* ''Literature/FullMetalPanic'':
** In the first season, Sousuke goes AWOL and abandons his post under a hostage situation to recover Kaname from the villains. Granted, she ''was'' the VIP he was specifically assigned to protect while the rest of the plane's occupants were not (and he had known her for a bit longer than most examples of this trope), but he was still ordered to stay with the other hostages by his superior officer. As to remove any doubt that he was planning to disobey that order, said officer also states that [[TemptingFate Sousuke's professionalism]] meant he'd definitely '' not'' do emotional things like charging off after the DamselInDistress.
** An interesting ''female'' version of this is shown with Grace Weissman (AKA Gray). She hardly knows much about Sousuke (who temporarily joined her team in a mission), yet immediately defends him and, in a way, "champions" for him against her skeptical teammates' suspicions about him (who dislike him due to him only being 16, yet being an equal in their mission). Her passionately defending him eventually made one of her teammates ask her if she's going that far because she has the hots for him. Even till the end when she's killed by Gauron, her last thoughts are for Sousuke not to worry about her, and that she hopes he will be able to return safely. Considering Sousuke's [[EvenTheGuysWantHim track record]], it isn't far off in saying Gray might've had at least ''some'' attraction to him.
* Yukiteru "Yukki" Amano from ''Manga/FutureDiary'' is shown to act this way towards Tsubaki Kasugano, a [[PrincessClassic beautiful and gentle]] DamselInDistress from the Omekata cult, quickly jumping in to save her and escape with her despite having just met her. When given a choice to trust her or his partner Yuno Gasai, he chooses Tsubaki (though you can't blame him because Yuno is a {{Yandere}}). It's not until [[spoiler:she makes it obvious that she's actually a {{Manipulative B|astard}}itch (mixed with WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds) that wants to kill him that he decides to go back to teaming up with Yuno. Tsubaki ends up disarmed by Yuno and killed by Yukki]].

* In ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'''s Universal Century, one of the PsychicPowers associated with [[TelepathicSpacemen Newtypes]] is the ability to rapidly establish deep emotional connections with others of their kind. Whilst most Newtypes are pretty sane about this (due to their powers manifesting once they had the emotional maturity to handle that sort of thing), Banagher Links of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn'' first manifested his powers when he was a young child, meaning that they're a far more integral part of his personality. Then the Industrial 7 incident happens whilst he's marinating in teenage hormones, and he suddenly finds himself up to his ears in pretty young Newtype girls with intriguingly tragic backstories. [[PowerIncontinence The results are entirely predictable.]]

* In episode 4 of ''Literature/IsItWrongToTryToPickUpGirlsInADungeon'', Bell is going about his business when he sees an unknown woman (Liliruca) being attacked by a sword-wielding stranger. He immediately rushes in to protect her, and when the attacker asks why he got involved in someone else's dispute, he replies "because she's a girl". Even Liliruca is taken aback by this, and asks him "Will you save any woman just because she's a woman?"
* In ''Manga/KingOfThorn'', it's revealed that all the survivors (except Kasumi) were [[spoiler: implanted with "keys" in their minds - and one of the "keys" was to "protect a weak Japanese woman with your life." Meaning that ''all'' the survivors were under The Dulcinea Effect, having the idea ingrained in them that they must irrationally protect Kasumi with their lives, even if they had never met her before]].

** Fujiko is also responsible for causing the Dulcinea effect on Lupin; the story with Pycal began this way, and she used it on both Lupin and Goemon to get them to kill each other in Anime/LupinIIIPart1.

* Gets a rare GenderFlip in the film ''Anime/MillenniumActress'' with Chiyoko's lifelong quest through [[MentalTimeTravel history]] and a [[ShowWithinAShow film career]] to be reunited with the mysterious man of her dreams, although she loves the chase more than anything. Played somewhat straight with the documentarian Genya who follows her through her journey, who repeatedly sacrifices himself for her, although we find out [[spoiler:he had saved her life once before, on a film set, and idolized her since]].
* In ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny Gundam SEED Destiny]]'', Shinn risks his military career and possible execution to save Stellar, an enemy SuperSoldier and TykeBomb who he met ''once'' before he found this out. Slightly justified in that she reminds him of his late little sister, and it's hinted that he loves her more as a ReplacementGoldfish than anything else.

* In the first episode of ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'', Shinji initially refuses to pilot the Eva until Rei is brought in and he realizes that if ''he'' doesn't do it, ''she's'' going to have to. In a twist, this seems to be more from empathy than from chivalry, since Rei is already seriously injured from an earlier attack.

* Gender flipped, inverted, and otherwise played with in ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena''. Screwing with this trope might be the point of the story, as [[spoiler: Prince Dios became the BigBad Akio when he was abandoned by the crowds after he wasn't able to save ''all'' the girls who needed it]], then [[spoiler: ropes Utena into coming to Ohtori by first saving her under the guise of the Prince he used to be, and then setting [[DecoyDamsel his much-abused sister Anthy aka the Rose Bride]] in situations that would make [[BullyHunter Utena]] invoke this trope on her]].
* In ''Literature/ReZero'', Subaru practically invokes this after getting TrappedInAnotherWorld; being WrongGenreSavvy, he figures he must be there to protect some cute girl, and after seeing Emilia searching for her insignia, he figures it must be her and decides to help her. The trope doesn't truly kick in until the two of them are murdered by [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Elsa the Bowel Hunter]], triggering Subaru's [[TimeTravel Return by Death]] for the first time, at which point Subaru becomes determined to (and eventually unhealthily obsessed with) helping and protecting her. Ram and Rem come to feel that Subaru is acting like this towards them but in their case, they have only known him for a day, but Subaru (and the audience) has actually known them for quite a bit longer. This being a {{Deconstruction}}, he's called out on this trope at every turn, even by Emilia herself, and ends up going through absolute ''hell''.

* ''Literature/{{Slayers}}'', as with so many others, lampshades this. When Gourry first meets Lina, he proclaims it is his duty as a knight to escort and protect Lina, despite knowing nothing about her (largely in part to his own lack of awareness).

* In ''Manga/XxxHolic'', Watanuki is this all the way - as long as it's a pretty girl in trouble, he's willing to risk his life to help her, even if they just met. In one case, he was shown to even be willing to continue meeting a lady, despite knowing that doing so was slowly killing him, because "she's lonely." (Granted, the lady reminded him of a mother figure he lacked, but ''still'', they had just met and only talked a little.) It's [[DeconstructedTrope a deconstruction]] because it shows he places no worth on his own existence or how he himself affects the lives of others, which brings him great damage ''and'' upsets the persons whom he wants to help. Example: he sacrifices an eye to help Doumeki when he's going blind before investigating his other options, Doumeki (who didn't want Watanuki to do such a thing in the first place), understandably gets ''pissed off'' at him, and a spirit that Watanuki had befriended ''almost dies'' trying to fix the mess.
** Watanuki is a [[spoiler:replacement clone and deep down knows he is not supposed to exist, thus his ChronicHeroSyndrome; he's subconsciously suicidal. A large purpose of him being at the shop was to gain self-worth so when the time came, he wouldn't vanish and the TimeyWimeyBall would remain intact]].

* Subverted in the ''[[ComicBook/TheSandman1989 Sandman]]'' tale "The Hunt", in which the protagonist travels long and far to find a beautiful noblewoman whose picture he's seen on a necklace, only to [[spoiler:end up returning the necklace to her and walking away to marry someone else. The tale ends with [[WantingIsBetterThanHaving the wisdom that some goals are better not attained]]]].

* Male-on-male example: In ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' fanfic ''Fanfic/DirtySympathy'', Klavier only knew Apollo for a night before deciding he will try to save him from his brother. Justified in that Klavier ''[[BigScrewedUpFamily knows]]'' what kind of [[ManipulativeBastard man]] his brother is and he would have been in Apollo's place if he hadn't run away the first chance he got. There is also an implication that Klavier is projecting his feelings on his [[DomesticAbuse bad situation]] onto Apollo.

* ''Film/{{Babylon|2022}}'': Manny falls in love with Nellie the moment he meets her and they befriend each over the course of the night. However, they only see each other again when Manny happens to run into Nellie in New York months later, and it's implied that they have similar sporadic encounters until Manny becomes a studio executive and is able to work much more closely with her. Nonetheless, he still remains both hopelessly in love and unquestionably devoted to her, risking both his career and his life for the sake of helping her. [[spoiler:Eventually, Nellie ends up leaving him because she knows she's a bad influence on him and that his sheer devotion towards her is unhealthy and only brings them more pain.]]
* "John Smith" from ''Film/LastManStanding1996'' is a retired [[VillainProtagonist gunman for hire]] who is possibly on the run from something, but he decides to stop in a mostly abandoned town near the Mexican border taken over by two Mafia gangs, the Irish and the Italians. He plays both sides against each other to make money, but things get personal for him when he discovers a Mexican woman being forced to be the Irish mob leader's girlfriend. He decides to risk everything to free her in secret but is found out and nearly beaten to death before escaping to recover and get revenge.

%%* ''Film/TheMask'':

* Inspector Clouseau in ''Film/AShotInTheDark'' is unshakably convinced that the beautiful Maria Gambrelli is innocent of murder despite the overwhelming mass of evidence that she is the killer. [[spoiler: She actually ''is'' innocent, but Clouseau was certainly acting under the influence of this trope.]]

* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
** Luke Skywalker after he sees the hologram of Princess Leia in ''Film/ANewHope''. While trapped in the Death Star, he takes an enormous risk to rescue her. Later materials imply that [[SeparatedAtBirth he subconsciously recognized his sister]].
** Han Solo averts this by refusing to rescue Leia until he's told that the princess is very rich. Luke's willingness to rescue the princess [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism contrasts his heroic idealism with Han's cynicism]]. It's made even more explicit in the Alan Dean Foster novelization of the film:
--->'''Luke:''' She's beautiful.\\
'''Han:''' So's life.
* ''Film/TheTerminator''. Kyle Reese volunteers to go back in time to protect Sarah Connor, who he fell in love with only from stories and a picture he was given by John Connor, knowing there is absolutely no way back and that going up against a Terminator programmed to kill Sarah will most likely result in a violent death. The line in question: "John gave me a picture of you once. I memorised every line. Every curve. I came across time for ''you'', Sarah." Though considering the [[CrapsackWorld alternative]] in the future... and John Connor gave the picture of Sarah to Kyle specifically to elicit this effect... [[spoiler:Kyle being his father thanks to time Travel, and all.]]

* ''Literature/JohnCarterOfMars'':
** In ''The Gods of Mars'', John Carter starts a GladiatorRevolt at the sight of women being thrown to monsters -- and most of the gladiators follow him. Largely justified, as it's made clear from the first novel that John's [[SouthernGentleman culture and values]] compel him to rescue ''any'' [[DamselInDistress woman from danger]]. Who they are is largely irrelevant.
** In ''Thuvia, Maid of Mars'', hearing a woman scream draws Carthoris from his sabotaged airship.
* In the ''Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian'' stories "Literature/ShadowsInZamboula", "Literature/IronShadowsInTheMoon", and "Literature/ThePoolOfTheBlackOne", Conan fights for unknown women on little provocation. Then again, he's [[InHarmsWay prone to fight on little provocation anyway]].

* ''Literature/HerculePoirot'': Captain Hastings suffers from this a great deal. He will always leap to the assistance of a young lady (especially a redhead), and will generally ignore any evidence pointing to her as the murderer. One such woman is even named Dulcie.

* ''Literature/{{Ivanhoe}}'' from the Creator/WalterScott novel has one of these. Ivanhoe champions for Rebecca, a girl who is not his {{Love Interest|s}}. It was a fair exchange since she healed his injuries and was accused of witchcraft for that and for being Jewish. Ivanhoe and Rebecca may not be the OfficialCouple, but they are very much the FanPreferredCouple... even by the ''author.''

* In Creator/LloydAlexander's ''Literature/TheGoldenDreamOfCarloChuchio'', the title character first meets his love interest Shira briefly as a boy, and upon finding out she is a girl, is instantly smitten. When she is being threatened an hour later, he shoves her out of the way and angrily tries to defend her honor, despite the fact that she was defending herself quite well.
* ''Literature/TheLockedTomb'': The aptly named Dulcinea Septimus in ''Literature/GideonTheNinth'', thanks to her terminal illness. Gideon feels compelled to protect her from the moment they meet. [[spoiler:It also turns out that Palamedes has devoted his life to trying to rescue her from her illness ever since he began trading letters with her twelve years ago. He never even needed to meet her in person to fall in love with her.]]
* Played with in ''[[Creator/LouisaMayAlcott Rose in Bloom]]'', the sequel to ''Literature/EightCousins''. Mac finds a girl and tries very hard to help her, even though he's only known her for a few minutes at the time he agrees. [[spoiler:Then again, she's about two years old, an orphan, and has no other close relatives.]] Lampshaded when he and Rose call her [[note]]Name her, actually; her mother was too sick to tell Mac her name, and nobody else knew either the mother or the baby.[[/note]] Dulcinea.
%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample * ''Literature/{{Sharpe}}'': The titular character is very vulnerable to this. Especially in the books where he has it going with several women simultaneously.

* Creator/NeilGaiman's ''Literature/{{Stardust}}'' is an AffectionateParody of chivalry. Tristran Thorn goes on a quest to find the fallen star and prove his love to the village beauty, Victoria Forrester, who seems extremely uninterested in him. He ends up realizing that he's not interested in her, either.
* ''Literature/{{Neverwhere}}'': Richard goes out of his way to help a girl he sees for the first time in his life, leading his fiancée to break up with him.
** Although Richard doesn't help the girl because he's in love with her, he helps her because she's lying in the street alone and bleeding. His fiancée breaks up with him because she's upset that Richard doesn't care about the fact that helping the girl would make them late for dinner.

* ''Literature/PlanetOfAdventure''. Anacho calls out the protagonist Adam Reith on this in the first novel, pointing out that he's oblivious to all the other suffering that's going on in the world, yet he's risking all to save a single pretty girl, who is just one prisoner in a caravan of slaves. Reith can only give a shamefaced grin and say that one man can't do everything, so he may as well start with the DamselInDistress.

* Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/IfThisGoesOn'': John Lyle gets involved in the revolution against the Theocracy for the sake of a girl he barely knows.
* ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'': This was clearly a reasonable thing to expect, ''if'' the woman was English like himself. Thus it's proof that nationalism was a lot stronger in the 1890s: if a character in 21st-century fiction [[AlwaysSaveTheGirl drops everything to help out]] a random stranger who happens to be from his home country, nobody would buy it.

* In ''Literature/SorcererToTheCrown'' by Zen Cho, Prunella mentions how Zacharias is exactly the kind of gentleman who could be easily manipulated into helping a woman who plays the role of a damsel in distress. Prunella actually needs help but exaggerates for effect as she doesn't know Zacharias (who would help her anyway).
* In Creator/AndreNorton's ''Literature/StormOverWarlock'', Shann, seeing a Wyvern lose control of a forktail, leaps to fight the monsters. This is not from a romantic interest, as established in the text.

* In William King's ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' Literature/SpaceWolf novel ''Wolfblade'', Torin warns Ragnar that the conversation he overheard may have been to induce him to assassinate a lord to protect a young woman -- and that the woman may have been part to such a plot.
* In Robert Jordan's ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'':

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'': Played straight with Sigurd and Deirdre (or Diadora, [[SpellMyNameWithAnS depending on who your translator is]]). Gender-swapped in the same game... with Deirdre and Sigurd. Yes, they ''both'' immediately fall madly for each other.

* Deconstructed in one of ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear'''s Radio [=CDs=]; [[ChurchMilitant Ky Kiske]] charges into a group of Gears in an attempt to save a woman. [[spoiler:He dies horribly and it leads to a BadFuture. ''And'' [[ManipulativeBitch the woman]] was counting on it]].

* Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs's heroes have this bad:
** In ''[[Literature/JohnCarterOfMars The Gods of Mars]]'', John Carter starts a GladiatorRevolt at the sight of women being thrown to monsters -- and most of the gladiators follow him. Largely justified, as it's made clear from the first novel that John's [[SouthernGentleman culture and values]] compel him to rescue ''any'' [[DamselInDistress woman from danger]]. Who they are is largely irrelevant.

* In Creator/RobertEHoward's stories "Literature/ShadowsInZamboula", "Literature/ShadowsInTheMoonlight", and "Literature/ThePoolOfTheBlackOne", Literature/ConanTheBarbarian fights for unknown women on little provocation. Then again, he's [[InHarmsWay prone to fight on little provocation anyway]].

* ''VideoGame/WhiteKnightChronicles'': Leonard had only met the princess, Cisna, once before, when they were kids (and she wasn't even interested in him, but in [[DistractedByTheShiny the butterfly on his head]]), but [[LoveAtFirstSight he falls in love with her the moment he sees her again (and she with him)]] and is willing to rush off and confront a hostile nation searching for destructive lost technology after they kidnap her (dragging his [[ChildhoodFriendRomance Unlucky Childhood Friend]] and the HeroicMime with him).

The Dulcinea Effect is also the main reason that [[StuffedIntoTheFridge women are put into a fridge]] in order to cause the male character [[BreakTheCutie angst]] and push him to [[ItsPersonal drive the plot forward]]. Compare LovingAShadow, which is being in love with the ''idea'' of someone rather than the actual person. Contrast MagneticHero, for a hero's ability to [[JustForPun pull this]] on followers. ChronicHeroSyndrome is when the hero does this for any random stranger. If this leads to a highly implausible romance, it's a case of StrangledByTheRedString. See also LivingMacGuffin. It's quite possibly related to LoveMakesYouDumb.