Line #53 Main/CagedInsideAMonster


1	[[quoteright:350:[[TabletopGame/YuGiOh https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lavagolem.jpg]]]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350: An accurate depiction of what [[BlessedWithSuck having this thing on your side of the field]] is like.]]
3
4	Marsupials and some other animals have pouches to carry their young. This trope covers fictional creatures with a built-in cage or cavity in which to hold a prisoner captive, or possibly a group of captives, usually the DamselInDistress, the sage, the hero's LoveInterest, or another loved one. The prisoner often has a view to the outside world, the better to cry for help. They may also be unconscious, or partially merged into the creature's flesh.
5
6	This is often a cage (or ribcage) with bars made of bone and flesh, or sometimes an extra mouth full of sharp teeth. A BlobMonster is often involved in cases where the prisoner is merged with its captor. May involve being SwallowedWhole, in which case GettingEatenIsHarmless. It can also be a CrystalPrison or a bubble of translucent flesh. In about half of all of the latter two cases, you can often expect the prison to also be the enemy's power source and weak point. Most of the time, however, the monster will use its captive as a HumanShield instead forcing rescuers to be careful in their attacks.
7
8	Invariably a case of OurMonstersAreWeird, this monster is often a GiantMook in service to the villain, but may be the FinalBoss, and possibly even the villain themselves after they go all OneWingedAngel. Often a demon, GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere, or giant skeleton. On a less monstrous note, it may be a robot SuperCop with one or more containment pods, or a whimsical animal with BizarreAlienBiology. Heroic examples tend to be rare, but can happen, typically by playing up the cartoonishness of it.
9
10	This is not the same as a WombLevel: the character may or may not be in danger of being digested or having their soul devoured, but they're stuck inside the beast, not walking around inside its guts.
11
12	Compare TreasureChestCavity and StomachOfHolding. Compare to SealedInsideAPersonShapedCan, where the imprisonment is extradimensional or spiritual rather than physical.
13	----
14	!!Examples:
15
16	[[foldercontrol]]
17
18	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
19	* ''Anime/KillLaKill'': The COVERS pull people inside them, trapping them and leaving only a small face visible.
20	* ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'': The sludge villain traps both Midoriya and Bakugo before attempting to enter and take control of their bodies, even using Bakugo as a HumanShield when confronted by heroes.
21	* ''Anime/PokemonJirachiWishmaker'' has the monstrous [[PhysicalGod Groudon clone]] that Butler ends up creating, which sucks up Pokémon and humans with slime tendrils and traps them inside bubbles in its body.
22	* ''Anime/SmilePrecure'': Majorina conjours up an apple-shaped Akombe with a cage that it uses to trap Nao’s siblings.
23	* ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable'': Killer Queen is revealed late in the part to [[spoiler: have a compartment in its stomach. It serves as a cat carrier for the [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot cat plant Stand]] Stray Cat, which can fire air bubbles that Killer Queen can [[HavingABlast turn into deadly invisible bombs]] with its first bomb.]]
24	* ''Manga/{{Toriko}}'':
25	** The Gourmet Corp. use a strange skeleton beast with cages on its shoulders to capture chefs during the cooking festival.
26	** The IGO also uses beasts that grow cage like structures on their backs to transport prisoners to the honey prison.
27	* ''Manga/SazanEyes'': One of [[TheDragon Benares]] Juuma is an insect-like creature with a voluminous bubble-shaped abdomen, which can be used to inglobate and seal enemies.
28	* ''Anime/SailorMoonSuperS'': A kangaroo-type MonsterOfTheWeek named Kigurumiko can trap people in her pouch, getting a strength boost from them and also forcing them to throw punches for her and making them feel any pain or injuries that she feels. She traps Artemis in this way and has the scouts on the ropes unable to fight back, but ends up throwing him from her pouch after he bites her, leaving herself wide-open for attack.
29	* ''Anime/TokyoMewMew'': Quiche creates a {{Blob\|Monster}} MonsterOfTheWeek from an amoeba to attack Masaya in one episode that attacks by trapping people in its body and smothering them.
30	* ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'': [[MakingASplash Seaman]] can create water monsters, which can imprison people within them. Later on, Itsuki can summon a bidimensional demon which can swallow others and keep them sealed inside a separate dimension.
31	[[/folder]]
32
33	[[folder:Comic Books]]
34	* The ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}''[=/=]''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk'' crossover had a dough-like monster imprison the Hulk in its own body, though he later escaped.
35	* ''ComicBook/GreenLantern'' introduces the ghoulish hag [[MeaningfulName Kryb]], member of the Sinestro Corps, whose favored method of instilling fear is to murder Green Lantern couples and kidnap their now orphaned newborns. She keeps the babies in a cage-like pouch on her back, and is able to secrete a mind-controlling liquid which she feeds them.
36	* ''ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}}'': In "All His Engines", a demon has stolen Chas's granddaughter and keeps her in a cage inside him. He allows John inside to see her, but John ends up covered in gunk as he lunges for the cage, so it's not surprising that she interpreted John's "We're coming to get you!" [[NightmareFuel in an entirely different context]].
37	[[/folder]]
38
39	[[folder:Fan Works]]
40	* ''Fanfic/SharingTheNight'': Dragons are immortal beings who never stop growing, eventually becoming titanic things of living earth and rock, entering nearly eternal hibernations and becoming part of the landscape; [[ThatsNoMoon almost every part of Equestria is made up of unimaginably ancient dragons sleeping on top of and around each other]]. Tartarus, specifically, used to be a dragon by that name who decided to contain all evil beings in the world by swallowing them and imprisoning them within himself. By the time he entered his permanent, rocky hibernation, he had become a living, cavernous prison still holding an uncountable number of ancient horrors imprisoned in his gut, which had been transformed and partially "digested" to become a host of lesser monsters that still wriggle to freedom past his jaws every now and again.
41	[[/folder]]
42
43	[[folder:Film -- Animation]]
44	* ''WesternAnimation/AliceInWonderland'': While in the Tulgey Wood, Alice meets a "birdcage bird", a large bird with a birdcage as its trunk, a head and two legs. It has two small birds inside its body. When Alice bumps into it, the door on the birdcage opens and the two small birds escape. The birdcage bird runs after them and swallows them, returning them to the inside of the cage.
45	* ''Anime/BaronOmatsuriAndTheSecretIsland'' has [[spoiler: the EldritchAbomination Lily Carnation with the Straw Hat crew stuck inside it and being digested]].
46	[[/folder]]
47
48	[[folder:Literature]]
49	* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': Erek, an android, reveals that the Chee are doing what they can to fight the Yeerks, sluglike parasites that wrap themselves around the host's brain and control them, but need to leave the host every three days. By pretending to be infested, they trap Yeerks inside their own cranium and extract information from them.
50	* ''Literature/MythAdventures'': In ''Myth-ing Persons'', Aahz is imprisoned in a living tower with the head of a gargoyle. Designed to hold vampires, it swallows any who try to escape in corporeal form, and inhales any who try to escape in mist form.
51	* ''Literature/{{Pale}}'': A "High Abyssal" called "Cagerattler" shows up for the [[TournamentArc Carmine Contest]], they're a gigantic skeleton with a old man manacled within the chest cavity. The Skeleton is the manacled man's biological son transformed in his fall into the abyss where he met the father he'd betrayed. What makes them even more dangerous is that they can use chains to pull up {{bogeyman}} and similarly cursed items to fight.
52	[[/folder]]
53
54	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
55	* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E10LoveAndMonsters "Love & Monsters"]], the baddy of the week is a FatBastard alien {{expy}} who absorbs his victims, where they become part of his body. Near the end, we see his victims' faces jutting out of his skin. They actually cooperate and push themselves outwards, which eventually weakens the monster enough to kill it.
56	* ''Series/KamenRiderOOO'': While most [[MonsterOfTheWeek Yummies]] grow by [[TheHeartless acting out the desires of the human they were spawned from]], the variety created by Kazari are instead parasites that influence that human's behavior. When they reach their adult form the host becomes trapped inside their body, forcing OOO to find some way to get the human out before he can destroy them.
57	[[/folder]]
58
59	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
60	* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'':
61	** An odd case with the devourer from the ''Monstrous Compendium III'' for the ''TabletopGame/{{Planescape}}'' setting -- these towering, cadaverous humanoids feature shriveled, doll-like figures visible inside their ribcages, representing the captive soul of one of its victims. If the devourer is destroyed, the captive soul is freed and the victim can be resurrected, but the monster will eventually drain the soul as fuel for its magical abilities, so rescuers need to act quickly.
62	** ''TabletopGame/{{Dragonlance}}'' introduced the stahnk, a huge undead beast with a rib cage that can open and close like a bear trap. Anyone trapped in those ribs will take constant damage as the monster's barbed and jagged bones grind against them.
63	** A wicker man is a variant of {{golem}} with a wicker cage in its torso, which it will stuff victims into. The constructs will ignite when exposed to fire, but take no damage from it -- anyone caged inside them, on the other hand...
64	* ''TabletopGame/YuGiOh'':
65	** The card "Lava Golem" is this as you can see in the page image, saddling you with a 3000 point monster...that takes 1,000 life points away from you every turn. Anyone that has one in their deck will also likely have multiple cards that will keep you from being able to utilize it and do as much damage as possible, unless you can tribute it or otherwise get rid of it. In the anime, it's depicted as placing its "owner" in a cage that slowly fills with lava.
66	** Both "Relinquished" and "Thousand-Eyes Restrict" work like this as well, being able to equip an opponent's monster card to themselves to not only take their attack and defense for itself, but also use them as a shield which will also inflict battle damage on the trapped monster's owner if destroyed (Relinquished and Thousand-Eyes Restrict survive the attack). In the anime this is depicted as the creature absorbing the opponent's monster and trapping it in its shell.
67	[[/folder]]
68
69	[[folder:Toys]]
70	* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'': Many larger figures have storage for smaller figures, some of which are identified as jail cells or prisons due to RuleOfCool:
71	** The original Fortress Maximus figure has a jail cell concealed in its left leg. Given Fortress Maximus is a [[GeniusLoci Cityformer]], that makes sense. This likely inspired his characterization in the IDW comics as warden of a prison.
72	** ''Anime/TransformersArmada'':
73	*** Megatron has storage for Mini-Cons. What makes it likely to be a prison is the fact that Megatron also has a capture claw for Mini-Cons. According to Hasbro, there were originally plans to have his figure have a "capture" gimmick while in tank mode but it was scrapped during development due to cost reasons. The springs on his antlers were [[TheArtifact leftover from that]].
74	*** From the same line, Unicron is filled with Mini-Con storage gimmicks. The animation makes it clear that the Mini-Cons are ''not'' in there by choice.
75	** The ''Titans Return'' Trypticon toy featured the gimmick of being able to swallow Titan Master sized figures while in dinosaur mode, who are then trapped in his chest. As he's another [[GeniusLoci Cityformer]], he's shown in some comics and animated series to actually have cells for holding normal sized Transformers.
76	[[/folder]]
77
78	[[folder:Video Games]]
79	* ''VideoGame/ArcTheLad'': Obtaining Gogen requires fighting the Illusion Lord. The monster is a large blue genie-like creature holding Gogen trapped between its hands and using his magics on your party during the fight.
80	* ''VideoGame/Bayonetta2'' has the monster Alraune, whose hollow chest cavity in her OneWingedAngel form contains [[spoiler: Jeanne's lost soul]].
81	* ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireII'': There is a boss with a figure listed as old man chained up to the side of it, killing the boss without killing the man allows you to rescue them.
82	* ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'': [[spoiler:Schala turns up during the final battle inside a crystal, which is actually the backside of the Time Devourer. Freeing Schala without killing her is how you unlock the GoldenEnding.]]
83	* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestXI'' has a class of monsters which appear as porcelain dolls with a birdcage where their legs would be. These monsters can trap allies inside their cages rendering them immobile until freed.
84	* ''VideoGame/ExtrapowerStarResistance'': The implication with the large organ-shaped enemies that populate the [[PhantomZone Ghost Gate]] that the players get pulled into partway through Stage 4. [[AllThereInTheManual The exploration report]] fears that if these large masses truly are organs as they appear to be, then the entire dimension must be an unfathomably massive creature.
85	* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'': Adel, the first boss of the story's last fourth, imprisons [[spoiler:Rinoa]] on their chest at the beginning of the battle to periodically drain HP from as well use as a HumanShield. [[spoiler:Rinoa]] not only takes damage from Adel's HP drain, but can be deliberately targeted, will get caught in any AOE attack you launch, and can eventually die from all that, resulting in a NonstandardGameOver.
86	* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'': The first major boss battle is against a giant plant monster currently holding Garnet trapped inside the cage formed by its own body. The battle is a ForcedTutorial that introduces the [[SuperMode Trance]] mechanic to the game.
87	* ''VideoGame/GirlsAndDungeon'': One of the boss battles involves a mimic who captures one of your companions in its mouth, forcing you to use only single-target attacks for fear of hurting the companion.
88	* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'': The Parasite Cage Heartless is, aptly named, a large monster that spent one of the two battles with it keeping Pinocchio trapped behind its bar-like teeth.
89	* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'': Maleficent summons a Heartless called "Prison Keeper" which has a cage as part of its body, and it holds [[WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas Lock, Shock, and Barrel]] in it until it has need of their abilities, in which case it swallows them.
90	* ''VideoGame/LegendOfDragoon'':
91	** The FinalBoss's second form can suck up a party member and keep them prisoner for a while inside it, before firing them back out to damage both them and whoever they were launched at.
92	** Disc 3 has the Wendigo, which can capture a party member within its chest until its two Ice Crystal summons are killed. The party member will then be ejected, allowing the player to attack its heart for a quicker kill.
93	* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'': Some games have [[MooksAteMyEquipment Like Likes]] keep Link trapped inside of them until he manages to slash his way out. Leave it to a creature that looks like a slug-like pile of slimy pancakes to think swallowing a guy with a big honking sword and refusing to let him go is a good idea.
94	* ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiBowsersInsideStory'': Among the enemies encountered in Bowser's castle after Fawful takes it over are the Jailgoons, which resemble large living cages with feet and with a cannon and shield for arms. Each Jailgoon contains either a Goomba or a [[ActionBomb Bob-omb]], minions that evidently remained loyal to Bowser and that Fawful thus locked away inside the Jailgoons.
95	* ''VideoGame/MegaManX1'' has Gulpfers, large fish that inhale and eat X. They're a minor annoyance at best since X can escape by shooting, jumping, or dashing until they explode.
96	* ''VideoGame/{{Rayman}}'':
97	** ''VideoGame/RaymanOrigins'': In each world, one of the five Bodacious Nymphs has been captured inside of a Darktoon, with the latter's teeth acting as jail bars. Rayman and friends then have to chase the Darktoon throughout the level and defeat it in order to free the Nymph and unlock a new ability that will aid them throughout the rest of the world.
98	** ''VideoGame/RaymanLegends'' sees the return of the Tricky Treasure levels as part of the Back to Origins bonus levels that were originally part of ''Rayman Origins'', in which Rayman has to chase living treasure chests in order to gain a Ruby Skull Tooth. In ''Legends'', the treasure boxes contain a captive Teensy Jester instead, making it this trope.
99	* ''VideoGame/ShantaeHalfGenieHero'': Late in the game you encounter Slimegals, [[CuteMonsterGirl deceptively cute]] {{Slime Girl}}s that engulf your character and deal constant damage until you manage to shake them off by ButtonMashing. They're largely harmless as they can easily be escaped from often before they even manage to deal damage, implying they're [[ObliviouslyEvil not actually intending to harm you]] since they appear to be [[AndCallHimGeorge just trying to hug you]].
100	[[/folder]]
101
102	[[folder:Western Animation]]
103	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Inhumanoids}}'':
104	** D'Compose used his [[{{Pun}} ribcage]] as a prison.
105	** This is Gagoyle's main shtick -- he can gobble his victims whole straight to his stomach, which is transparent. Then bystanders can watch as they are slowly dissolved by its acid. Thankfully, Gagoyle can vomit anyone out intact, sans their dignity.
106	* ''WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfWinnieThePooh'': At the beginning of "There's No Camp Like Home", Piglet has a nightmare about being chased by heffalumps and woozles, ending with him being behind bars inside a police heffalump's stomach.
107	* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': When Gems [[FusionDance fuse together]], they turn into amorphous light before reforming into a new body. In [[Recap/StevenUniverseS4E23AreYouMyDad "Are You My Dad?"]]/[[Recap/StevenUniverseS4E24IAmMyMom "I Am My Mom"]] and [[Recap/StevenUniverseS5E1StuckTogether "Stuck Together"]], the Topazes exploit this by forming the merged body ''around'' people to hold them captive. The [[spoiler:[[AlienAbduction abducted humans]]]] she holds inside are [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/steven-universe/images/f/ff/Are_You_My_Dad_180.png engulfed almost entirely]], usually only exposing eyes, noses, and parts of a few helplessly flailing limbs.
108	* ''WesternAnimation/SweetSea'': Squidney uses his tentacles to form a cage around Sweet Sea and Sea Star to take them to Sheeba.
109	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Wakfu}}'': Shuhsu General Anathar has what at first glance could be considered a BellyMouth, surrounded by crustacean-like legs, except he doesn't so much eat things with it than uses it as storage, including small creatures like Rubilax (in sword form) or Grany Smisse (in bow-meow [housecat] form).
110	* ''WesternAnimation/XiaolinShowdown'': In the season finale, after the monks (sans Raimundo who defected to the Heylin side) -- and Jack Spicer, forming a momentary EnemyMine -- failed their attempts to defeat Wuya, they're then imprisoned in the stomach-cages of Wuya's {{golem}}s. Wuya then orders them to be executed, and it turns out the golems can contract their stomach spaces to crush anything trapped within, but Raimundo pulls a HeelFaceTurn soon enough, reverting Wuya to a ghost and turning her golems to dust, freeing everyone.
111	[[/folder]]

Context Main / CagedInsideAMonster