Help is here so take it!
"Come with me if you want to live!"
Alice has found herself in a sticky situation. Maybe the Mooks are closing in, or even worse, the Big Bad himself. She's on the wrong end of a Run or Die battle, and running isn't working out too well. Enter Bob — whom Alice may have never met before — with a speedy getaway at the ready. Bob could be a guy on a horse, in a car, on a motorcycle, a wilderness expert, or even a made-of-iron cyborg Stone Wall.
This is distinguished from The Cavalry because the unexpected rescuer is:
- Mostly introduced in this fashion, having only been briefly seen or mentioned before;
- Helping the hero escape, not reinforcing the hero;
- Often introduced in this fashion in order to leave it open ended whether he's a good guy, bad guy or something in between.
Subtrope of Herald.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In Cowboy Bebop, Meifa does this to Jet when they get shot at by gangsters in the cemetery.
- In Highschool of the Dead, the first thing Takashi does upon witnessing Teshima's zombification is run back to his class and get Rei out of there. He's met with some resistance, but Hisashi, who apparently figured out that Takashi wouldn't behave the way he just did unless it was a life-or-death situation, calmly brings her outside so Takashi can explain the situation to her while they're making a run for it.
- After The Final Problem arc of Moriarty the Patriot, Sherlock wakes up to find himself and William on a steamship to America after being rescued by Billy the Kid, a stranger who promises all the medical care William and his Convenient Coma need...so long as Sherlock agrees to work with him for the US government.
Comic Books
- Booster Gold and Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) once pull this while rescuing one of their old comrades in a Bad Present; Ted says the line and Booster protests: "Hey! You said I could say it!" Booster later pulls this in order to rescue Ted's successor, Jaime Reyes, from an exploding spaceship.
- Saya in Deadly Class is introduced this way, arriving on a motorcycle.
- Ultimate Marvel
- Occurs in The Ultimates 3 #4.
- Jean Grey says this to Liz Allen in Ultimate X Men after the latter's mutant powers awaken. Derek Morgan and Jimmy Hudson lightly mock her for it.
- Also done in Ultimate Spider-Man during the "Ultimatum" event by Kitty Pryde.
- Ultimate X Men: The daughter of the president has been kidnapped by the Brotherhood. She is terrified. Then, a second group of mutants kidnaps her as well. She's still terrified.
- Ultimate Spider-Man: The Shocker tries to steal money from a security van with his powers. Then Spider-Man (still barely known by the public) defeats and disarms him with his super powers. The guys think that he's also after the money, and try to give it to him before he attacks them. Spider-Man flees.
- In the first IDW Comics Transformers mini-series, Ratchet introduces himself to the traditional MacGuffin-carrying human sidekick with "If you want to live, come with me."
- In Guardians of the Galaxy (2008), Kang the Conqueror of all people pulls this on the title characters in issue #19.
- After making a very dramatic entrance in the 2013 run of Young Avengers, Noh-Varr tells the heroes "Come with me if you want to be awesome."
- The Punisher MAX: During "Up Is Down And Black Is White", Frank barely escapes from an ambush when a former CIA agent rushes up to him in an SUV. With a more... succinct version of the phrase.
Kathryn: Get in the car, asshole!
Frank: Best offer I'm likely to get all night.
Fan Works
- A variation occurs in The Night Unfurls, when Kyril offers Olga the opportunity to join him in their Great Escape so he can complete his mission.
Kyril: Your choice, stay here and suffer... or live in uncertainty and come with me.
Films — Animation
- Finding Nemo has the variant, "Hop inside my mouth if you want to live." (It Makes Sense in Context.) Especially when it's a pelican rescuing Dory and Nemo's father from greedy seagulls.
- The LEGO Movie parodies the trope, along with many others, making the line "Come with me if you wanna not-die."
- In Spirited Away, Haku asks this of Chihiro when she first enters the spirit world.
Films — Live-Action
- In '71, a young boy offers to lead Gary back to his barracks.
"Come on, I'll take you back to your barracks. It's up to you.. what else are you going to do?"
- "Come with me if you want to live", said in this context, is one of the iconic lines from the Terminator franchise, occurring once in every movie as well as in the pilot of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Kyle Reese says it first to Sarah, after she initially assumes he's the Serial Killer bumping off people with her name until the Terminator tries to shoot her. When the T-800 says the same to Sarah, it's a Call-Back to that scene and it may even have been programmed with the phrase as a Trust Password by a future John Connor. Subverted in Terminator: Dark Fate.
Grace: Come with me, or you're gonna die in the next thirty seconds!
- Happens in many James Bond films.
- You Only Live Twice Bond is escaping from the Osato Chemicals building when Aki drives up beside him and tells him to "Get in!"
- In Spectre, Madeleine Swann asks Bond why she should trust him.
Bond: "Because right now, Dr. Swann, I'm your best hope of staying alive."
- TRON: Legacy, involving a light-cycl-um, 4-wheel-drive, fits the trope to a tee when Flynn Jr. is rescued from the game grid by a masked Quorra.
- Subverted in The Mask. As Stanley Ipkiss is fleeing the police, Peggy Brandt pulls up in her car and tells him to get in... only to get taken to Dorian's hideout.
- Saito in Inception pulls up in car in Kenya and rescues Dom from the absurdly vindictive assassins from a rival corporation. Saito is also a former victim of Dom's mind-hacking who turned the tables on Dom and hired him, so this is a "friend or foe" example.
Dom: You had me tracked too?
Saito: Protecting my investment. - Knowing. The children who were chosen by the angelic aliens to relocate to another, Garden of Eden-like, planet are actually the only ones who survive the apocalypse in the end. Unless some Mind Control is at work here, from the way the children calmly accept their destiny and let themselves be beamed up, it can be assumed that they were told what is about to happen, and offered this choice beforehand.
- Subverted in Marathon Man, in a rescue attempt.
- Aragorn's introduction in The Lord of the Rings is a particularly slow-moving version of this trope (since his method of escape is "be a wilderness expert" rather than something like "drive a fast car"). This is more true in the film, where they leave Bree right away; although it's heavily implied in the book that the hobbits wouldn't survive the night without him.
- Another "wilderness expert" example is the Mohican rescue in Last of the Mohicans (1992 film version).
"We're movin' outta here, fast. Unless you all's'd rather wait for the next Huron war party to come along."
- In Casper the 1995 movie, Casper puffs out his chest Arnold-style and says this to Kat before he flies her away.
- In The Skulls, as Chloe runs away from the bad guys trying to kill her (members of the nefarious title club), she's intercepted by yet another of them. He tells her to get into his car and promises to take her to where her boyfriend Luke (the protagonist, placed in an asylum for trying to expose the group) is being held. Realizing she doesn't have much choice, she jumps in. It turns out he was telling the truth.
- In Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, after a Big Damn Heroes moment where he effortlessly kills a sadistic Zealot, Master Chief tells the shell-shocked cadets to come with him.
- In Dora and the Lost City of Gold, the live-action movie version of Dora the Explorer, the line is quoted in the trailer
.
- This is the tagline for the movie-within-a-movie in America's Sweethearts.
Literature
- Tallow does this in Dragoncharm when he finds Fortune, who has been ejected from the mountain in a land he would have been unfamiliar with even if it wasn't covered in snow. Tallow is an expert pathfinder, so although he doesn't use this line, Fortune understands that he really does need to go with Tallow if he wants to live.
- Achmed does this to Rhapsody in the book Rhapsody. It should be noted that in one of the later books, he says that it would have been more accurate for him to say "Come with me or I'll kill you."
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a Downplayed example, since Arthur Dent knows Ford Prefect quite well, but doesn't know he's an alien with the only means of escaping earth until he shows up with a towel and a signaling device.
- Paranoid Mage: A couple running from the Wild Hunt is rather understandably freaked out to hear a hoarse disembodied voice tell them, "I can save you, but you’ll need to follow my directions." Callum makes good on his promise, though, using them to lure the Hunt into an ambush that none survive, and getting the couple to safety afterward.
- Wizard's First Rule, the first book of the Sword of Truth series, has a variation. It's the main protagonist who introduces himself to the newly-introduced character in this manner rather than the other way around. And he's also a wilderness expert.
- In Twilight (2005), Edward rescuing Bella from the would-be-rapists in Port Angeles:
Headlights suddenly flew around the corner, the car almost hitting the stocky one, forcing him to jump back toward the sidewalk. I dove into the road — this car was going to stop, or have to hit me. But the silver car unexpectedly fishtailed around, skidding to a stop with the passenger door open just a few feet from me.
"Get in," a furious voice commanded. - Early in A Brother's Price, Jerin sees a scarred woman with What Beautiful Eyes! who kisses him before vanishing into the crowd. Later he is kidnapped, and the scarred woman is among the kidnappers, assuring him that she'll help. When he gets free and escapes on horseback, she catches up and pulls him on to her horse, much to his dismay. But she does help, telling him he'll get back to his wives with his honor intact. He does, since his rescuer turns out to be one of his wives, but he hasn't yet met this one.
- In Murderess, Déaspor and the Wizard warn the Caurns to come with them immediately because they were no longer safe where they were. This doesn’t work very well: the mother dies and Aucasis, the daughter is captured by the Dark Ones.
- Invoked by name in the conspiracy noir Get Blank, though the Man in Black rescuer uses the rather more bizarre phrasing, "Enter my conveyance if you wish to retain molecular consistency!"
- Used almost word-for-word in the Relativity story "Master Blankard's Pawn". (It's phrased more as an invitation, though: "We're leaving. You can come with if you want to live.")
- Used self-consciously and humorously, and immediately lampshaded, in Aeon 14 Return To Sol: Star Rise:
Misha: Come with me if you want to live!
Nance: Lame, You can't use that line!
Live-Action TV
- Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.:
- In the episode "A Hen in the Wolf House", Bobbi Morse, introduced earlier as the head of HYDRA security, reveals herself as a S.H.I.E.L.D. Mole by saving Simmons (who's also a reverse mole, but just had her cover blown) from HYDRA Mooks and helping her escape.
- The episode "A Trout in the Milk" is even more blatant with Enoch rescuing part of the team with the variation, "Come with me if you want to continue to exist."
- In the pilot of Alias, Sydney gets rescued in this way by her father. She already knew him (naturally), but this is the first time she learns that he too is a spy...
- Bad Education: the line appears in the season 5 trailer.
- Chuck: Chuck's mom says this line to him, fittingly, since she is played by Linda Hamilton, who originally played Sarah Connor in the Terminator films.
- Spoofed on Community, during the paintball war episode. "Come with me if you don't want paint on your clothes."
- CSI: NY: In "Redemptio," Sheldon visits a prison to witness an execution and gets trapped among the inmates when a riot breaks out. One of them decides to help him and convinces Sheldon to follow his lead by saying, "Come with me if you want to live."
- Linda Hamilton also portrays Pilar in Defiance, where she says this to Nolan in the season 3 episode "Broken Bough".
- Doctor Who: The Doctor tends to do this a lot.
- "Rose": The Ninth Doctor meets Rose this way, saying only "Run!" before dragging her off through a series of basement corridors and an elevator that can be conveniently sealed via sonic screwdriver.
- He gives this speech to a minor character in "Bad Wolf", after escaping from a Deadly Game of Big Brother, promising that if she came with him he'd protect her. He fails in the next episode.
- "The Fires of Pompeii": He saves a family from Pompeii's destruction by landing in their living room as the eruption occurs, holding out his hand as ethereal light streams from behind him, saying "Come with me."
- In the Due South episode "Spy vs. Spy", one-off character Pike does this twice, rescuing both Fraser and Kowalski on separate occasions.
- Eureka's Fargo uses the line as a Terminator Shout-Out in the episode "Momstrosity".
- Game of Thrones:
- Ser Dontos tells Sansa, "If you want to live, we have to leave now," when chaos breaks out in "The Lion and the Rose".
- Benjen says this to Bran when he rescues him and Meera.
- Harriet showing up to rescue KT, Eddie, and Willow in House of Anubis while the trio were surrounded by sinners.
- How I Met Your Mother's Barney Stinson turns this into a pick-up line while naked: "Come with me if you want to bang."
- In the Season 4 opener of Lost, Locke almost says this trope word for word when trying to convince the survivors to take shelter in The Barracks because the people from the freighter intend to harm them.
If you wanna live, you need to come with me.
- The Middleman has an example complete with Terminator Shout-Out in its Mirror Universe episode — mirror-Pip makes his first appearance rescuing Wendy from the mirrored version of her apartment in his car, saying the iconic line.
- Ms. Marvel (2022): In episode #4, after Kamala tussles with Kareem, aka Red Dagger, some police start running toward them.
Kareem: Come with me if you want to live!
Kamala: What?
Kareem: Just kidding, I Always Wanted to Say That. But really, we should go, there's someone you need to meet. - Nikita uses this a fair bit when foiling assassinations. Her mole in Division is not able to find out about these operations until the last minute so Nikita gets there just barely ahead of the assassins (sometimes she is late).
- Inverted in the Stargate SG-1 season 5 episode "Desperate Measures", with a completely villainous variant. Colonel Frank Simmons says this basically word-for-word to the Goa'uld possessing Adrian Conrad — after having put a couple of bullets from behind into the protagonist, Colonel O'Neill.
- Star Trek: Picard: In "The Impossible Box", having just been betrayed to her death by her lover, Soji is understandably reluctant when Picard shows up claiming to be a friend of her father and urges her to come with him. She goes along more because she has no other choice if she wants to get off the Artifact alive.
- Parodied in the Supernatural episode "Party On, Garth", nerdy hunter Garth yells this while trying to rescue a Victim of the Week, however said victim can't see the invisible Shojo that's coming after him and just thinks Garth is crazy.
- Darkly subverted in season 4 of Teen Wolf, in an episode's Cold Opening in which Garrett drives by a female werewolf who's being hunted by Violet and yells at her this trope; seeing no other option to escape, she gets in Garrett's car. He then comments he couldn't believe she fell for that before stabbing her to death with wolfsbane.
- In the first episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Cameron, a normal teenage girl, says this to John Connor as he's being attacked by a Terminator. It turns out she's a Terminator herself, but a good one sent by his older self from the future to protect him.
- Glenn's introduction in The Walking Dead is this. It's the same way in the comic, too.
Tabletop Games
- Shadowrun adventure Harlequin. The PCs are on a mission when things go haywire, with corporate police closing in from all directions. A van pulls up beside them and the driver says "So, are you guys going my way or would you rather stick around and wait for your new friends to catch up with us?"
- Hollow Earth Expedition supplement Secrets of the Surface World. Used by Erich Reinhardt in the adventure "Prisoner of the Reich" to get the PCs to go with him when they're attacked by Nazis.
- Exalted: Due to the way Abyssal Exaltation works, this is the standard operating procedure of recruiting new Death Knights. Technically though, you're no longer "alive" in the normal sense after you take the Black Exaltation.
- In Psionics: The Next Stage in Human Evolution this is, verbatim, the first line in Broken Things. Justified, as the speaker is saving an esper from a government research/indoctrination facility.
Video Games
- Arknights: Lin Yühsia says this verbatim to the captured dignitaries and contestants she's trying to rescue in "Dossoles Holiday".
Lin Yühsia: Come with me if you want to live.
- Your introduction to Elanee in Neverwinter Nights 2.
- Lampshaded in the beginning of the second stage in Jonathan Kane: The Protector, once Jonathan rescued his Old Flame, Jennifer. "I'm your only option if you want to live. Now let's go!"
- Every ending of the various Origin chapter versions in Dragon Age: Origins. The player character is rescued by Duncan out of a threatening situation and more or less reluctantly joins the Grey Wardens. With the possible exception of the Mage origin (if the player sides with Irving and betrays Jowan), all of them will result in the death of the player character without agreeing to join Duncan.
- Perfect Dark spins a dark twist on the Terminator mythos when the primary agent of the Skedar "Mr. Blonde" infiltrates the dataDyne headquarters, planting a bomb and killing everyone except the CEO Cassandra De Vries. Blonde disarms her gun and informs her "Go to the helipad, if you want to live". The subversion is that its not for her own safety, but ultimately to be brought to "Skedar Justice" aboard the mothership. The overall effect is heightened by some remarkably Terminator-esque music, sans the hopeful tone in the original piece.
- Inverted in Borderlands. One of the taunts for the Bandit-Traps is "Come with me if you want to die."
- Also appears in Tales from the Borderlands when Loader Bot shows up to save Fiona and Sasha from an attacking Athena.
Loader Bot: Come with me if you want to leave.
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Hadvar, a legionnaire and born-and-raised Nord is the hand-holder through the starter dungeon. Helps compensate for the fact that the Legion just (mistakenly) almost executed you, as he tried (although failed) to convince the others to let you go... before all hell breaks loose when a dragon shows up on the scene.
- You get two characters that fit this trope in the opening quest; Hadvar and Ralof, a Stormcloak rebel who you shared a wagon with on the way to your execution. When the dragon attacks, you first run off with Ralof, then with Hadvar after you get separated, and moments later you and Hadvar run into Ralof again, and you have the choice of following either one. Interestingly enough, both credit you with saving their lives during the starter dungeon; while they're this trope up until you're freed of your binds, once you're free to fight you're more than pulling your weight.
- In Team Fortress 2, Soldier gets a new line with his robot costume: "Come with me if you want to live... with me... in my apartment... I need a roommate."
- In Resident Evil 2, Leon tries persuading Ben, who is in jail, with, "Look, if you wanna live, then you're gonna have to leave with me," when Ben thinks he's safe from monsters, unaware that Leon is "the only cop left alive" in the police department. Ben refuses Leon's offer and stays in his cell, thinking he would be safer behind bars. Later on, he opens his cell and gets attacked by a monster, dying moments later after giving Leon big info about the corrupted Chief of Police.
- TRON 2.0: Like the TRON: Legacy example above (and probably inspired it, despite being Alternate Continuity), Jet is able to escape the Game Grid when his opponent Mercury blasts her way out and orders him to follow.
- Mass Effect:
- Commander Shepard is often fond of this form of rescue, though his/her introductions to Liara, Tali, and Jack are the best examples.
- Miranda's appearance at the end of the tutorial level in the second game resembles this.
- Australian Special Agent Alura McCall gives James Bond such a rescue in NightFire.
- World of Warcraft: Illidan says something very similar to this to the players in the Well of Eternity time-travel dungeon:
Illidan: Come with me if you'd like to live long enough to see me save this world!
- Season two episode 3 of The Walking Dead has Sarah who is completely catatonic after seeing her father get shot in the neck and dies right before her eyes. Clementine and Jane find her and Luke trapped in a trailer home surrounded by walkers. As the walkers close in on the group, you can have Clementine slap Sarah in the face to snap her out of it and tell her that she will die if she doesn't escape with them.
- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain: Twice in the prologue level. First, Ishmael rescues Snake from an assassin and leads him out of the hospital; then, after they get out but are separated, Ocelot shows up on horseback to help Snake escape the Man on Fire.
- Overwatch contains two instances as character voice lines that can be applied : Ana received "Follow me if you want to live" in an Anniversary Update. Baptiste later had the line added verbatim.
- Shin Megami Tensei V: Soon after the main character is suddenly transported into the Netherworld (later known as "Da'at"), he is attacked by a swarm of flying Daemons. With no means of defending himself, it seems like he will be easy prey; enter Aogami, who destroys one of the Daemons as he arrives from the sky, and then essentially says this trope as he reaches his hand out to the main character. Upon taking his hand, the two fuse into the Nahobino, which gives the main character the ability to fight back against the Daemons and the many, many other demons in Da'at.
Visual Novels
- Jeremy in Fatal Hearts shows up in his car to provide a convenient escape from certain sticky situations the protagonist gets into. It's the player's choice whether to take it or not.
Webcomics
- In Skyvein, when Emi and Feng break Taisce out of jail, this is essentially their appeal to them.
- Wilde Life: Oscar, a diehard Terminator fan, quotes the line verbatim when he arrives just in time to beat a monster away from Cliff with a baseball bat.
Web Original
- Dina Marino: Gideon does this to help Siria escape from korean police.
- In this SoraNews24 article, the first image shown is a man with a "Rocket News Launcher" saying "Come with me if you want to learn Japanese!", spoofing its' use in the Terminator franchise.
Web Videos
- Episode Thirty of One Hundred Yard Stare has Avery tell Bowie to come with her rather than return to his house after being escaping from the Antibody Squad.
- Somewhat Played for Laughs at the very end of the first Season of WarpZone Project. The character that gets told the line is immortal, but is still escaping A Fate Worse Than Death thanks to the unexpected savior who's none other than a time-travelling duplicate of the protagonist who, last thing the audience knew, had gotten turned into a zombie.
- The Half in the Bag review of Terminator Genisys ends with future versions of Mike and Jay showing up and saying this. Their present selves make no attempt to leave.
Western Animation
- Subverted in Blue Eye Samurai. Mizu does this twice; once to a Sex Slave and the next to runaway princess Akemi in the following episode. The sex slave she neck-snaps because she's been contracted to kill her, while Akemi she rescues from the Thousand Claws but stands by as her father's soldiers drag her off to Edo.
- Chowder says this word-for-word in The Apprentice Scouts, complete with the Austrian accent.
- In the Drawn Together Terminator-inspired plot, the future version of Camp Gay Xandir says "Come on me if you want to live," while rescuing Wooldoor (whose happy children's show brought on the idyllic "gay future"). "I think you mean, 'Come with you.'" "W-why, w-what'd I say...?"
- The Fairly OddParents!: said by Jorgen von Strangle in the Wishology Trilogy.
- In "No Substitute for Crazy", Denzel Crocker lost his job as an elementary school teacher and became a crossing guard. The teacher who replaced him at Dimmsdale Elementary School revealed herself as an even more menacing fairy hunter than him. Crocker helped Timmy telling him to cross the street if he wants to live.
- Hercules: The Animated Series does this as a Shout-Out to Terminator. Hercules is on the run from his Stalker with a Crush Yandere shapeshifting, clay golem girlfriend (It Makes Sense in Context; the episode's plot is based on Pygmalion) who has more than a passing resemblance to the T-1000. Cassandra turns up in a chariot and utters this trope.
- In Justice League, Aquaman said this almost word to word to Solomon Grundy.
- Star Wars Rebels: In "An Inside Man", a disguised Kanan and Ezra, attempting to escape Lothal City's Imperial complex during a lockdown, get rescued by the The Mole in this fashion, ordered into an elevator under the pretense of coming with him to check the perimeter — with the added complication that they don't initially know he's on their side, as the last time they interacted with him was before his Heel–Face Turn.
- Arcee tries not to do this in the first episode of Transformers: Prime with Jack, but is forced to anyways when her pursuers split up and one goes after him.
- At the end of Steven Universe episode "Mirror Gem", Lapis offers Steven to come with her, creating a pathway in the sea so he can follow her. When Steven hesitates, she angrily closes the path and departs, while telling Steven the Crystal Gems couldn't be trusted.
