Times where a loved one is taken hostage in Literature.
- Age of Fire: Near the end of the fifth book, RuGaard is ousted as Tyr in a coup and sent into exile. To ensure that he stays gone, the plotters take his mate Nilrasha hostage, threatening to execute her if he ever enters their territory again.
- Alex Rider: In Eagle Strike, Damian Cray kidnaps Sabina Pleasure to force Alex's cooperation and prevent him from going to MI6 with the flash drive.
- A Brother's Price: The villains kidnap a husband in order to invoke this trope. However, it fails, as one of his wives has infiltrated the lower-class criminals hired to do the job. So it is more of a "your sister has her husband, and we are trying to get them both."
- City of Fallen Angels : Lilith tells Simon that she has his girlfriend. Due to the fact that he had just broken up with Maia and Isabelle, he does nothing, assuming that it's an empty threat, until he discovers that Maureen has been killed due to her crush on him.
- Codex Alera: High Lord Kalarus likes this tactic. When he rebels against Gaius, he kidnaps the High Lady Placida and other loved ones of important nobles in order to insure that they stay neutral in the civil war. He even took Rook's, his own chief spy and assassin, daughter hostage to ensure her cooperation and locked her in the same room as Placida. Placida is a Person of Mass Destruction in her own right so she probably could have escaped on her own, but Kalarus set the security systems to go for the kid first if she tried to escape, since he knew that she would not sacrifice a child for her own freedom.
- Cradle Series: Jai Long's is completely devoted to his Delicate and Sickly sister Jai Chen, so she gets taken hostage multiple times to force his cooperation. In the middle of his revenge against the Jai clan, Jai Long immediately gives up (under the assumption that he'll be executed) when he discovers that they captured his sister. Lindon also considers threatening her in order to get out of his impossible duel with Jai Long, but Yerin talks him out of it. Later, Lindon instead heals Jai Chen of her disorder. While this doesn't get him out of the duel, it does save his life, as Jai Long refuses to kill the man who saved his sister.
- The Desperate Hours: In the book, play and movie, three escaped cons take the protagonist's family hostage in their own home.
- The Devil to Pay in the Backlands: The heroes kidnap Hermógenes' wife to use her as bait. Eventually, she becomes Diadorim's friend.
- Doc Savage: Doc gives this as the reason why he doesn't form relationships. That hasn't stopped people from speculating that the 1930s hero has other reasons....Savage: Ah, there's no room in my life for love, Mona.
Mona: But why, Doc?
Savage: There was a girl once. We were to be married. She was kidnapped by the men I had been pursuing—they threatened to kill her if I didn't drop the chase. I gave in. I had to. Later, when she was returned safely to me, I realized there could never be a future for us. I realized if I were to do what I had chosen with my life, there could never be a loved one who could be used against me. Or harmed because of me. Do you understand? - Doctrine of Labyrinths: Lieutenant Vulpes forces Mehitabel to spy for the Bastion by threatening her lover Hallam Bellamy with torture.
- Dune: This is why Wellington Yueh betrays the Atreides, with a twist: the Harkonnens have Yueh's wife Wanna, and they are torturing her. Constantly. Yueh's deal with the Baron is that the Baron will kill Wanna, putting an end to her miserable existence. This is why Yueh also sacrifices his life to assassinate the Baron; the plan fails, but it's kind of sweet.
- Elenium, by David Eddings:
- One of Sparhawk's brother knights confesses to trying to murder him repeatedly. He explains that the Big Bad has effectively worked a kind of Demonic Possession on the woman whom the knight loves, and is forcing his cooperation in this way. When the woman figures out what's going on, she kills herself to save him, and the knight does likewise, making the confession on his deathbed.
- In the sequel trilogy The Tamuli, the new Big Bad sends The Dragon to kidnap Sparhawk's wife. Seeing as 1) Sparhawk has a handful of assorted gods who like him and are willing to help him out, and 2) there's nothing in the world he loves more than his wife, this can only be considered a Very Bad Idea in the long run.
- The Fangs of K'aath: In Book 2, Guardians of Light, the villain Tzu-Khan has the good Shah Raschid's wives kidnapped. With them in his clutches, he makes contact to the Raschid through a magic mirror about how he intends to have them horrifically tortured and yet unable to die unless the Shah surrenders. However, the heroic wives break free just long enough to reveal the location of the villain's army and instruct their husband both to break his mirror to cut off contact for more threats, and "Kill the bastards!" Well aware of what his wives are sacrificing sending that message, Raschid wastes no time to honor those demands. Fortunately, a combination of cunning and The Power of Friendship allows the wives to not only individually escape, but to join the fight against the villain.
- A Greg Egan short story changes this to I Stole A Copy Of Your Wife's Brain Upload.
- In Grunts!, Ashnak uses the threat their mother's life to "encourage" Will and Ned Braindiman to steal nullity talismans from the Visible College for him.
- In The Guardians, demons are fond of this tactic to coerce humans into a Deal with the Devil. Deacon betrays his friends and gets several of them killed trying to ensure his lovers' safety. It was all in vain.
- In Half Bad, Mercury uses Annalise as leverage to get Nathan to do what she wants.
- The Han Solo Trilogy: Mrrov was coerced after realizing the One and the All cult was a scam into staying on Ylesia when its clergy claimed they had her mate Muurrgh, who'd be killed assuming she tried to leave, showing a picture of him to her. This was a lie, since they lied and told Muurrgh that she wasn't on planet, getting him to work as a guard for the operation. However, she didn't know that and therefore stayed until her rescue by Muurrgh with Han when they found out about her.
- Harry Potter:
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Voldemort fools Harry into believing that he has taken Sirius, Harry's beloved godfather, in order to lure Harry into the Department of Mysteries.
- In The Deathly Hallows, Luna is taken prisoner to force her father to rat out the trio.
- The Hunger Games where President Snow kidnaps and tortures Katniss's husband as one step in foiling the revolution. It's a pretty interesting example since Katniss and Peeta aren't actually married, Peeta just claimed that they were married and pregnant in the hopes of gaining sympathy and sponsors for Katniss in the Quarter Quell. They are engaged, but that's kind of on the fake side too.
- What turns it into Fridge Horror is when she realizes that Snow insisting that she convinces him that her feelings for Peeta are genuine had nothing to do with quelling the riots in Panem, as Katniss originally thought, and everything to do with this trope. Being no idiot, Snow knows that Peeta's value to him is in direct proportion to how much Katniss cares about him. Unfortunately for Peeta, Snow figures out that Katniss is in love with him before she herself realizes it.
- In a way this trope applies to all Hunger Games victors. Unless they stay in line and do whatever Snow asks of them (like prostituting themselves), their families will pay the price. Johanna Mason and Haymitch learned this the hard way.
- In the second book, President Snow kidnaps Finnick’s partner Annie and best friend Johanna (both fellow victors) when the arena gets blown up to keep him under his thumb. He does the same for Katniss with Peeta.
- The Husband: The premise. "We have your wife. You can get her back for two million cash."
- Known Space: After Jason manages to escape the Kzinti in "The Soft Weapon", they try to force him to bargain by threatening to eat his wife, who remains their prisoner, on limb at a time, with medical treatment in between to make sure that she doesn't die of shock while they work her over. When they capture him, they start the process right up in front of him.
- The Mouse Watch: Jarvis says that he and his siblings only worked for R.A.T.S. because the Nebulous Evil Organization was holding their parents hostage. At least, that's what R.A.T.S. told them. In reality, Jarvis' parents had already been killed for refusing to join.
- Nick Velvet: In "The Theft of the Child's Drawing", the people desperate to retrieve the eponymous drawing abduct Nick's girlfriend Gloria and demand the drawing in exchange for Gloria's return.
- Night of the Necromancer have the sibling version, where the hero, the Warrior-Lord of Valsinore Castle, must save his younger sister, Orianna, who was captured to be sacrificed by the titular Necromancer in exchange for permanent immortality.
- Night Over Water by Ken Follett: Eddie the mechanic must help hijack the airship because the bad guys are holding his pregnant wife hostage.
- No Country for Old Men: Subverted. The Psycho for Hire Anton Chigurh figures out where Llewelyn's hiding his wife, and offers to spare her if Llewelyn hands over the money and sacrifices himself. Llewelyn refuses and plans to ambush him instead, leading to him getting Killed Offscreen by the Mexicans and Anton making good on his promise to kill his wife due to his insane Because Destiny Says So ideology.
- The Outside: When Cold-Blooded Torture fails to convince Yasira to kill everyone affected by the Outside on Jai, the angels abduct Yasira's girlfriend Tiv and threaten to hurt her even worse.
- Relativity: August Moon captures Ravenswood's wife, Melody. Unfortunately for Moon, Melody's a good fighter. He finally manages to subdue her, but he's still in a foul mood about it when Ravenswood shows up to rescue her.
- The Scarlet Pimpernel: Chauvelin gets Marguerite to help him because he has taken her brother, Armand. In one of the sequels, Eldorado, Armand betrays the Pimpernel to Chauvelin in exchange for the freedom of Armand's lover, Jeanne L'Ange, who had been arrested for helping him elude capture; ironically, the Pimpernel has already freed Jeanne from prison.
- Shadow of the Conqueror:
- This was a favorite tactic of Dayless the Conqueror, who routinely threatened the family and loved ones of his enemies to keep them in line, and was more than willing to follow through if they rebelled against him.
- Captain Blackheart is a master blackmailer as well, creating sunucles that he can use to kill the people they're linked to at any time. He holds Sain captive this way by threatening his mother.
- Shatter the Sky: Emperor Rafael tries to coerce Maren into standing down when she's fighting him near the end by holding Sev hostage, who he knows she cares for. It doesn't work.
- The third Soldiers Of Barrabas (a Heroes "R" Us series by Gold Eagle) novel had enemies of Nile Barrabas from his Vietnam days kidnapping his girlfriend and saying "You've got 48 hours before we kill her. Come and get her." The Big Bad thinks his jungle fortress surrounded by booby traps and ambushes will take care of Barrabas and his men, but they kill an ambush squad and infiltrate up their hidden retreat path, which is free of booby traps. Even so the girlfriend only escapes with her life because The Dragon doesn't execute her as ordered, knowing Barrabas would spend the rest of his life hunting him down.
- A Song of Ice and Fire:
- Very common practice, with both heroes and villains doing this and often for similar reasons. Families often send children off to live with other families as wards or squires, but this requires coercion or a huge amount of trust. Some people get Kicked Upstairs where they can be watched, like Harys Swift, whom Cersei named Hand of the King. Some people are unable or unwilling to negotiate for their loved ones because the terms of release are too demanding (at least to them) or they don't actually care about that person. In other cases, the party holding the hostage has no intention of letting them go regardless.
- Daenerys takes children from many powerful families in Meereen, but grows fond of them and refuses to punish them for the crimes of their parents, which her advisors consider to rather defeat the point of the exercise.
- The Sons of the Harpy, a group opposing Daenerys' conquest of Meereen kidnap the nine year old daughter of a caterer, then force him to poison food that will be served to Daenerys, promising to return his daughter when Daenerys is dead. After the assassination attempt fails, the Sons return the girl's body cut into nine pieces.
- In the third book of the Spaceforce (2012) series, the Big Bad Minty Mazata taunts Jay with this when she is arrested. It works - he storms off to save her.
- The Stainless Steel Rat's wife was once held hostage by the tax office to get him to pay his arrears. She went quietly so as to give him time to think of something. Normal thugs are not advised to attempt this. Really.
- Happens all the time actually, though it's not always shown how. There's usually a mention later of a number of mooks being bumped off in the process by Jim's armed and psychopathic wife.
- The Strain: The Master hides in Eph's apartment to await his return to tell him "I have your pig wife."
- In the Superman novel The Last Days of Krypton, the villain kidnaps the hero's wife. It's a two-for-one hostage since his wife is pregnant.
- In the Temeraire series, I Have Your Captain (either by imprisoning them on the ground or capturing them via boarding action) is standard operating procedure in the West for capturing hostile dragons and keeping them under control as they will do a great deal to keep their human from harm. Of course this is hazardous as killing the captain has rather the opposite effect and being too hamfisted with threats of harm can backfire.
- In the Tempest (2011) series, Tempest's two love interests are the selkie prince Kona and the human Mark. In Tempest Unleashed, Tiamat's goons kill most of the selkie royal family, kidnap Kona, and leave a note in his blood that says, "The new selkie king requests your presence at the Sahul Shelf." They also kidnap Mark and keep him chained up next to Kona with an oxygen tank on the ocean floor. The idea is to use Kona as bait, then use Mark to surprise Tempest so she won't fight as well.
- Third Time Lucky: And Other Stories of the Most Powerful Wizard in the World: In "Be It Ever So Humble" Warlord Herrick attempts to coerce Magdelene into serving him by holding Juan as a hostage. It doesn't work.
- Tolkien's Legendarium:
- Beren and Lúthien: Gorlim agrees to betray his lord Barahir in exchange for being reunited with his wife Eilinel, who he believes to have been captured by Sauron. After Gorlim has told him what he wanted to know, Sauron keeps his promise by revealing Eilinel is dead and putting Gorlim to death.
- The Children of Húrin: Morgoth tries to blackmail Húrin into betraying the Elves by reminding him that his wife and son are at Morgoth's mercy now. Húrin retorts he is not dumb enough to think that breaking his word would guarantee his family's safety and refuses to falter.
- The Fall of Númenor: In some notes of the early version of the Fall published in The Lost Road, Elendil's son Herendil is arrested and imprisoned by Sauron to force Elendil to do his bidding.
- In The Tombs by Clive Cussler and Thomas Perry, this is attempted. It fails miserably. The husband, Sam Fargo, mounts a rescue while his wife Remi plots a daring escape. For good measure, they set fire to the kidnapper's house on the way out.
- In The Twilight Saga, James blackmails Bella to sneak away from the Cullens by pretending he has her mother as a hostage: in reality, he just played a recording of her voice over the phone.
- Uprooted: After Kasia (The Not-Love Interest) is taken by the Wood and saved from it, Prince Marek orders Agnieszka and Sarkan to go on his fool's errand to save his decades-imprisoned mother from its deepest depths... otherwise he'll have Kasia executed under the law for The Corruption. Then he brings her to the capital with the Empty Shell of a queen to keep up the threat, because proving the Queen is clear will save Kasia's life too.
- In the Warrior Cats book A Forest Divided, a rogue named Slash kidnaps Clear Sky's mate Star Flower, saying that the forest cats need to hunt prey for them like the strays that lived there used to.
- In While the Clock Chimes, two weavers are ordered to prepare the fabric for new invisibility caps, which will be used for provoking a war with the neighboring kingdom. The weavers refuse adamantly – until the king tells them he holds their little sister captive. Then they Take a Third Option and rescue their sister just before she is executed, exposing the king's lying nature to the populace on the way.
