I Have Your Wife / Video Games

Times where a loved one is taken hostage in Video Games.

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• In Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, when the Usean Satellite Network is destroyed in a simultaneous A-Sat strike by Osea and Erusea, the Erusean Radicals order Dr. Schroeder to take Ionela and Alma with him to the Lighthouse, to ensure that their grandfather, Mihaly, continues to cooperate with them.
• The plot of Art of Fighting has Takuma Sakazaki forced to become Geese Howard's enforcer as the latter has Takuma's daughter Yuri held hostage. The SNES port slightly alters it: Takuma's gambling debts lead him to work for Geese, and Yuri's kidnapping was performed to make him assassinate Jeff Bogard.
• In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Baron de Valois captures Bartolomeo's wife and tries to make him surrender.
  • Also in Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Ahmet kidnaps and threatens to kill Sofia Sarto in order for Ezio to deliver the Masyaf Keys. Ezio gives in, and Ahmet releases a girl that's dressed like Sofia, but ends up being a doppleganger. Ezio eventually finds and reaches Sofia moments before she is killed by hanging.
• Subverted in Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn: Bodhi will warn you against continuing to oppose her lest you lose everything dear to you, and kidnap your love interest character, if any — but will offer no deal not to hurt them if you yield, presumably because she knows you have no choice but to follow her anyway and because she likes to be sadistic.
• Baldur's Gate III
  • Late in the game, Orin will have one of your party members abducted while she poses as them at camp. After she reveals herself in your camp, she will explain that she is holding your companion in the Temple of Bhaal, and if you want them back alive, to bring her Gortash's Netherstone. You can comply with her demands (and she will honor her end of the bargain), or confront her without the Netherstone, in which case you'll need to pass a DC 25 check to prevent her from killing them.
  • Around the same time, Gortash uses this to force the Gondians to help build his Steel Watchers: if the Motivators don't keep them in line, a threat against the lives of their imprisoned loved ones will. Said loved ones are kept in the Iron Throne, an underwater prison for political enemies that can be scuttled in case of a jailbreak.
• In BlazBlue, this eventually happens to Litchi Faye-Ling when Relius Clover took hostage of her boyfriend-turned-freaky... thing Arakune and told her to join NOL, or she'll never get the cure which NOL has, or even see him alive again. This plays up Litchi's Love Martyr qualities and by the end of the series, she pulls a Face–Heel Turn and hampers Ragna's quest to destroy NOL. It's not known how she'll end up since her Face–Heel Turn shows at the Cliffhanger ending.
• Averted in The Caligula Effect, when Mirei thought that holding Kotono's boyfriend hostage would make her admit defeat. Unfortunately, Kotono absolutely despises her actually-ex-boyfriend and basically tells her to go ahead and drown him in a giant fish tank as planned.
• In Clash at Demonhead, Bang is told that his girlfriend has been kidnapped and instructed to meet one of the bad guys at a specific location. It's a lie; she was never kidnapped.
• Def Jam: Fight for NY has this happen to the Player Character's girlfriend, with the villainous Crow threatening her unless he wins back the territory he took for D-Mob. Sadly, the protagonist's girlfriend dies.
• The plot of the original Double Dragon is about Billy and Jimmy being forced to fight their way into the Black Warriors' turf to save Billy's girlfriend Marian.
• Dragon Age uses this a few times.
  • In Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening, a nobleman begs the Warden-Commander for assistance because a group of thugs have kidnapped his daughter and are holding her for ransom.
    • Also in Awakening, you can actually use the trope yourself when deciding how to handle a group of disgruntled nobles. One of the available options for the scenario is to "invite" a member of each of the nobles' families to be a "guest" at Vigil's Keep, holding them hostage in a Gilded Cage in exchange for the good behavior of the nobles.
  • During Act 3 of Dragon Age II, a rebel mage group kidnaps one of your party members. Hawke's sibling is the first choice; if both of the twins are dead, they instead kidnap Hawke's love interest. If Hawke hasn't romanced anyone (or is a female romancing Sebastian, since he's DLC exclusive), they'll go for the companion with whom Hawke has the strongest friendship. In this case they're not so much trying to demand that Hawke cooperate, but rather are using the captive as leverage to keep Hawke from coming after them. They have apparently forgotten that Hawke is the Champion of Kirkwall for a reason.
    • Hawke's father Malcolm was in a similar situation years earlier, as revealed in the Legacy DLC. Larius threatened his pregnant wife to force him to seal Corypheus with Blood Magic.
  • In Dragon Age: Inquisition, an Avvar warrior called the Hand of Korth captures several Inquisition agents and keeps them as hostages in order to force the player character to come and fight him. As one character explains it, he wants to be able to brag that he killed the Herald of Andraste.
• Dragon Quest: The Dragonlord kidnaps Princess Gwaelin to force King Lorik to surrender.
• The Elder Scrolls
  • The Dunmeri Great House Telvanni is practically a breeding ground for Evil Sorcerers and Mad Scientists thanks to its rather lax rules. Telvanni Mage-Lords have been known to kidnap the wives, daughters, and other family members of their rivals in order to influence them. In Morrowind, two quests involve you rescuing these family members from their Telvanni captors.
  • In Skyrim's Hearthfire DLC, the Dragonborn may come home from a hard day's adventuring to find a ransom note from a thug called Rochelle the Red, who has taken the hero's beloved wife/husband captive. If the Dawnguard DLC is also installed, the spouse may be abducted by vampires; the vampires may also abduct one of their in-game friends instead. As the kidnappers quickly learn, it's not a good idea to antagonize the Dovahkiin in such a personal manner.
    • This can lead to some Fridge Logic with some of the available spouses; While the vampires might make sense, it stretches credulity that a petty thug like Rochelle was able to kidnap, say, Aela the Huntress, an Action Girl with years of adventuring experience who also happens to be a werewolf.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Cecil's Love Interest, Rosa, is abducted in Final Fantasy IV as soon as Golbez sees she's important to him. He doesn't actually give marching orders until a while later, but they're to bring him one of the world's Power Crystals. Cecil complies without hesitation; Golbez goes I Lied with equal lack of hesitation, but they manage to get her back anyway.
  • In Final Fantasy VII, Cait Sith holds Barret's adopted daughter Marlene hostage in order to force the party to continue working with him as they head to the Temple of the Ancients, at least, sort of. He ends up working with the party, and protects Marlene when Midgar is in danger on Discs 2 and 3.
  • In Final Fantasy IX, Kuja pulled this off, holding the entire party hostage in order to get Zidane and the party members of Zidane's choice to go fetch the Gulug Stone from Oeilvert. (This was immediately followed up by him kidnapping Eiko, though in this case, it was for his own purposes, not because he wanted something from the party.)
  • Double Subverted in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. Bhunivelze holds Serah's (Lightning's sister) soul hostage so that Lightning will follow his orders to prepare humanity for the end of the world and become the new Goddess of Death. Lightning eventually discovers that he doesn't have Serah at all and decides to kill him for lying to her; however, it's later revealed that Bhunivelze does have Hope's soul, which forces Lightning to continue doing God's bidding. At least until she can kill him and save Hope.
• In the Attract Mode for Final Fight, Damnd (the Round 1 boss) calls Haggar and tells him to turn on the TV. It reveals his daughter Jessica with her hands tied behind her back.
  Haggar: What have you done to her?!
  Damnd: Nothing yet. But we'd enjoy the opportunity.
• Fire Emblem
  • Used against Abel in Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem. The Archanea soldiers occupying Altea kidnap Est, forcing him to fight against Marth's army, although he can be persuaded to rejoin again after speaking to either Marth or Est.
  • In Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, Travant kidnaps Hannibal's adoptive son Corple to force him to fight.
  • Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade: Raven is fighting your army because Marquess Laus' soldiers have his companion Lucius hostage. If his sister Priscilla talks to him, he decides to join you (helped by some friendly NPC soldiers in the same cell deciding to break out).
    • Also occurs indirectly (and, uniquely, between an Anti-Hero and a former villain when they're both under The Hero's banner) in Matthew and Jaffar's A support. A little context: Jaffar killed Matthew's girlfriend Leila on the main villain's orders, and Matthew swears revenge on her killer once the main lords find her body. In the support proper, Matthew announces that some associates of his have captured Nino, the local Teen Genius and Jaffar's Morality Pet, and if Jaffar tries anything funny before Matthew kills him, she dies. Jaffar accepts this, but Matthew doesn't go through with it at the last second. He then reveals that it was all a bluff and that he never harmed her.
  • Path of Radiance does the We Have Your Younger Siblings, Radiant Dawn is I Have Your Milk-Sister, and Awakening does this twice with Maribelle and later Emmeryn - both ploys by Gangrel in an attempt to get the Fire Emblem all for himself.
• In The Force Unleashed 2, Darth Vader tries to force Starkiller to work for him again by kidnapping Juno Eclipse, the woman he loves.
  Vader: Find and kill General Kota. If you refuse, the woman dies. You will return to me and give yourself to The Dark Side. If you resist, she dies. And when your training is complete, you will hunt down and execute the rebel leaders. If you FAIL, SHE DIES!
• Played for Laughs in Freaky Flyers when playing story mode as Paulie Atchi. Pilot X kidnaps Paulie's mother in an attempt to force him into a battle in outer space... only for Paulie to tell him You Can Keep Her!, since his mama's the only gangster more ruthless than he is! Pilot X does not take this well.
• The motivation for the protagonist in The Getaway. Hilariously parodied by the Unskippable crew:
  Charlie Jolson: I ring you, you do the job. You don't do what I tell you, the kid dies. You don't do it where I tell you, the kid dies. You don't do it when I tell you, the kid dies! Are you getting my drift? Now you want to see your kid again, you do exactly what I say. You talk to anyone, you're late, or you let me down, your kid dies! Do I make myself clear?
  Paul Saunders (as Mark): But what if I go skydiving?
  Graham Stark (as Charlie): Your kid dies!
  Paul: What if I forget to bathe?
  Graham: Your kid dies!
  Paul: But what if I kill my kid?
  Graham: Your ki—touché.
• Happens in Grand Theft Auto V when Trevor kidnaps cartel boss Martin Madrazo's wife Patricia, partly as retaliation for not being paid for a job he did, and partly because he had a thing for Patricia the moment he laid eyes on her. In the end, the whole thing's Played for Laughs.
• Spoofed in GTA: Vice City, as demonstrated by the page quote.
• The whole point of the video game Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. Kane is forced into finding his mercenary friends' lost fortune when they take his wife and daughter hostage. In this case, though, the wife gets killed, which starts his Roaring Rampage of Revenge, and depending on the ending, the daughter either hates Kane forever or is killed while trying to escape. The latter is the good ending.
• This happens twice to Kairi in Kingdom Hearts II. She gets kidnapped by Axel, and then Saix kidnaps her while she's already kidnapped.
• In Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], Maleficent pulls this on King Mickey, kidnapping Queen Minnie in order to try to get him to hand over the datascape. Her plans are thwarted by the timely intervention of Lea.
• This is why Gato Futaba is forced to compete in The King of Fighters 2003; Geese Howard threatens his estranged younger sister Hotaru so that he'll become one of his cronies. As soon as her safety is assured, Gato cuts his losses and runs off the first chance he gets.
• LISA: In order to recruit Rooster and Crisp, Brad has to hold the beings dear to them hostage. For Rooster, the hostage is his prized hen Goldie. For Crisp, the hostage is his boyfriend Toby.
• Zig-zagged in Loopmancer. Your enemy, Hiroyuki, kidnaps your crippled wife to force you into handing over an important MacGuffin and fight him to a duel, but it turns out Hiroyuki is an Affably Evil Noble Demon - when you answer his challenge, Hiroyuki orders his minions to escort your wife back to the hospital. Defeat Hiroyuki and the subsequent cutscene sees you rendezvous with your wife, unharmed.
• The reason for the actions of Dr. Cossack in Mega Man 4, as Dr. Wily has his daughter hostage.
• Metal Gear really loves using this trope:
  • In the original Metal Gear, Ellen Madnar was held hostage by Outer Heaven so her father would cooperate in developing Metal Gear.
  • In Metal Gear Solid, the Pentagon arranges for Meryl Silverburgh to be captured by the Sons of Big Boss by deliberately sending her to Shadow Moses with full knowledge that she's being sent the same day they'll revolt. They do this in order to force Roy Campbell (whom the series eventually reveals is her father) to not only cooperate in halting the revolt, but also in keeping secrets from Solid Snake (such as Metal Gear REX's development and Snake being used as a vector for a bioweapon virus known as FOXDIE). In the in-game novel on the events in the sequel, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, it's also revealed that not only were the Patriots behind the Pentagon's decision in regards to Meryl being sent, but also heavily implied that they would have had both Meryl and Roy Campbell killed if Campbell had even attempted to expose the secrets to Snake.
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty has two instances of this in the game (three, counting the aforementioned in-game novel), and the Patriots are responsible for all. The first is with Olga Gurlukovich: The Patriots kidnap her child immediately after birth, and threaten to kill her child should Olga either disobey their orders or fail her mission (in this case, if Raiden ends up killed). The second time is to Raiden himself: Not only does he have to save Olga's child after she dies in an act of sacrifice, but must continue to live for Rosemary and his own unborn child, as they are holding her hostage, and she's pregnant, and it is implied that even after Raiden succeeds in the exercise, they are still holding them hostage.
  • Something similar is revealed to be the reason why The Sorrow and The Boss fought to the death in Dolinovodno: They had to fight due to The Boss's failure and her unauthorized usage of the Philosopher's spy network; otherwise, the Patriots would have murdered Ocelot - who is the son of The Sorrow and The Boss.
• Used in Professor Layton and the Unwound Future, where the Big Bad kidnaps Layton's adopted daughter in order to make absolutely sure that Layton will pursue him. The irony is that Layton, being Layton, would have gone after him anyway — all this trick did was make him mad.
  • Appears again in Professor Layton and the Last Specter. The Big Bad holds Clark's wife hostage to force him to cooperate.
• The freeware RPG Game Quintessence - The Blighted Venom: Lunair kidnapped Reivier's wife Serai to Aeria under orders of the Duke, but after finding out that her own family betrayed her, struck a deal with Reivier that she would bring Serai back if he gets her the cure to the Quintessence's aftermath.
• The plot of Red Dead Redemption is kicked off by the hero's wife (and child) being held hostage by a Knight Templar.
• Resident Evil
  • In the first Resident Evil game, Wesker blackmails Barry to do his bidding by using the latter's family as leverage - if Barry doesn't do what Wesker says, his family will die.
  • In Resident Evil 6, Helena Harper is forced to work under Simmons because he took her sister Deborah hostage to use as a bargaining chip. Tragically, shortly after being rescued it turns out Deborah was infected with the C-Virus, forcing Leon and Helena to kill her. Naturally Helena is pissed and for the second half of the game goes Roaring Rampage of Revenge on Simmons to avenge her.
• Sophitia Alexandra in Soulcalibur 4 is a sacred woman, a loving mother, and a holy fighter. Then her children get infected with the evil sword Soul Edge, and it tells her to destroy all its enemies, or else her kids will die. Sophitia's Mama Bear qualities drive her to betray everything for which she stands in order to save her children. She gets better... thanks to Algol suddenly growing sympathy for her and helping her destroy Soul Edge.
• In The Space Bar, the police detective main character's partner is kidnapped and held hostage by the criminal they're chasing, and the Big Bad regularly calls the main character's PDA to taunt him with his partner's potential fate. Since the two seem to be good friends as well as work partners, it ends up being a rather significant motivation.
• In Super Robot Wars BX, the SMS are forced to work for Marder because he held the Macross Quarter crew captive.
• In Tales of Destiny, the reason why Leon Magnus betrays Stahn is because his Brainwashed and Crazy father Hugo Gilchrist took hostage of Leon's favorite maid/mother figure Marian; forcing him to fight Stahn off and the surrounding circumstances ended up killed him.
• Eddy Gordo in Tekken is mostly a normal guy, who does love his mentor. In 5. mentor goes out of jail, but is sickly. He fought in the 5th tournament to get the cure, failed to win. Then, Jin Kazama, after apparently having a Face–Heel Turn as the new boss of Mishima Zaibatsu, moved his mentor to his hospital and offered Eddy the cure if he works for him in the upcoming war with the world. Eddy reluctantly accepted, but in the end, he found out that Jin was lying and his mentor is dead. Even though Jin turns out to be executing The Plan for a greater good, that's the last straw for Eddy and he quits the Zaibatsu.
• Inverted in Wing Commander II, the traitor attempts to hold Spirit's fiancée for ransom. It doesn't quite work.

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