Unwanted Rescue

It's a fish! It's always lived in water!

Ichigo: I'm gonna save you even if I have to drag you away. From now on, all your opinions are rejected!
Rukia: You're ignoring all of the rescuee's opinions?! What kind of tyrannical way of saving someone is that?!
Ichigo: Shut up! The one being rescued doesn't get to complain!

— Bleach

The Big Damn Hero go into full-rescue operation to save the Victim of the Week. After much hardship, they prevail...only to learn that the victim didn't want to be rescued. A few possible reasons:

• The most common variant is, the captive has a personal grudge against their would-be liberator(s) and would rather die than be indebted to them.
  • Alternatively, they might just consider being obliged to their rescuer to be more trouble than escaping without their help or even continued captivity would have been.
• The captive, for reasons only their brooding self could comprehend, was ready to welcome misery or death, perhaps believing that they deserve to suffer for past misdeeds.
• The captive got themself caught on purpose in order to execute a plan, which the Big Damn Hero have now ruined for their side.
• The captive is being held as bait for the rescuers, and prefers to face the danger themself rather than put them at risk.
  • Alternatively, even if the captor didn't specifically anticipate a rescue attempt, they are likely to quickly turn it to their own advantage.
• Captivity was actually rather pleasant (if only for a certain kind of person), or even a version of Fluffy Cloud Heaven.
• The "captive" was actually a willing guest in the first place, or even not in any such situation at all. The rescuer was misinformed, manipulated, or simply misunderstood the situation.
• An escape is just what the captor want as part of their larger plan, and the captive wants to thwart that by staying put.
• The intervention caused more damage than the lack of it, as the heroes have destroyed something that will now cause the base to blow up — Nice Job Breaking It, Hero.
• Or, worse, the captive had nearly had an agreement for a peaceful resolution with the apparent villain (perhaps the Monster Is a Mommy or otherwise not really evil), and the heroes' attack restarts the conflict and convinces the foe that peace is impossible.
• The captive was already getting away or even turning the tables on their captor without help, and the "rescuer" just screwed that up by barging in. Even worse if the rescuers get in danger themselves and the captive has to get the rescuer out of it.
  • Alternatively, the captive is a Boisterous Weakling or similar who just claims so, while their rescuer roll their eyes and reply "yeah, sure".
• The rescuee actually requested to be held captive No Matter How Much I Beg in order to prevent some bad outcome (perhaps an involuntary transformation or loss of self-control), which will now occur as a result of freeing the captive.
• The Terrifying Rescuer and/or Destructive Saviour seems more dangerous than staying safely in prison.
• The rescuer is actually a villain, and they are oblivious to that fact. The captor is actually heroic, and the captive knows this, which is why they are siding with them to begin with. The villain just has skewed ideas of who is good and bad, so, by trying to be "heroic," they show their true colors as the horrible person that they are.

Whatever the reason, the "victim" is severely pissed off at the unwanted heroes who are left stunned by their ungratefulness. No one goes home happy this time.

When the unwillingly saved party is a Rival or Worthy Opponent, the situation becomes an Embarrassing Rescue.

If the person did want to be rescued, just not by a specific person or in a specific manner, then that's Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like.

See also Not Brainwashed and The Victim Must Be Confused. May be triggered by Stockholm Syndrome. Compare with Mistaken for Imprisonment.

Contrast with Lotus-Eater Machine, where the "wanted captivity" is only an illusion and clearly the wrong choice, and Unwanted Revival, where the "captivity" is death.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Bleach:
  • Rukia doesn't want to be rescued from her impending execution. She thinks she deserves to die for killing her mentor, Kaien Shiba, decades earlier (even though he was possessed by a Hollow and effectively already dead). Ichigo doesn't care. Nor do numerous other characters who aid (or in some cases, attempt to aid) in Rukia's rescue. She also fears for the safety of those attempting to save her.
  • Ichigo seems to have really bad luck with this trope. Pretty much every person he's 'saved' hasn't wanted it for certain reasons. In the movies, Hitsugaya says something along the lines of "I didn't ask for your help and I didn't want it," and while Senna does want to be saved, she doesn't seem to want Ichigo to do it. (Until she realizes her death would be The End of the World as We Know It.) Also, in the Hueco Mundo arc, Orihime thanks Ichigo for saving her, but then goes on to say she'll stay kidnapped so she has the chance the erase the Hougyoku. She's probably one of the more thankful captives.
• In Brave10, at one point Isanami gets scared of being fought over, claims It's All My Fault and just gives up and resigns herself to being a prisoner of Date, despite Ana and Sasuke's rescue mission. Ana eventually talks sense into her.
• Bungou Stray Dogs starts with Atsushi saving Dazai from drowning in a river, only to find out that Dazai was trying to drown.
• A Certain Magical Index: Mikoto met Touma when he "saved" her from a bunch of delinquents who were hitting on her, not knowing that she is more than capable of defending herself. She doesn't appreciate it. He later pulls the same stunt (in the first novel/episode), this time trying to save the delinquents from inevitably getting zapped. Mikoto is even more angry this time because, as revealed in A Certain Scientific Railgun, she was actually playing along with them in order to get information about the Level Upper out of them.
• A minor (and humorous) version of this can be found in Full Metal Panic! with Sousuke and Mao. When Mao was describing how she first met Sousuke and Kurz, she mentions that her first meeting with Sousuke went rather poorly, with Sousuke being ridiculously unfriendly and stand off-ish. And when Kurz starts sexually harassing her (which was mainly just to ensure that she wouldn't choose him for part of her SRT team), Sousuke stealthily goes up to them and stops Kurz by putting his rifle between them. However, this "rescue" doesn't exactly go appreciated, considering the way he phrased it and the condescending way he acted. "That's enough. Your name is Kurz Weber, right? Stop teasing the petty officer. You'll cause trouble for the rest of us."
  • In Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, one episode focuses on a young man finding Kaname very attractive, so he sends his butler to invite her to his mansion. She agrees (still upset at Sousuke for earlier) and she obliges. Sousuke, being well... Sousuke, comes up with bizarre assumptions such as Kaname tracking an old enemy or being kidnapped by some crazed thugs who may be doing horrible things to her and sets off, full combat gear, to rescue her. It doesn't help his assumptions when the staff of the mansion turn out to be professional fighters rangers from assassins to former members of military groups, which only fuels Sousuke's rescue efforts as he defeats them. When he finally reaches Kaname, she tries to pretend she's not even present before finally hitting him over the head for his boneheaded rescue. He then confusingly asks if she was kidnapped, and she plainly states she was having tea and was invited. This doesn't stop Sousuke from jumping out the window with Kaname while holding a portable chute and slowly floating over the beach.
  • Several episodes later, Kaname and her friend Ren (the daughter of a Yakuza boss), are kidnapped. They're saved by Sousuke and the gang wearing combat armor... made from Bonta-kun outfits. Their jog through downtown is fairly humiliating as the two women are escorted by several Bonta-kun suits all shouting marching chants.
  • In Dancing Very Merry Christmas, Killy B. Sailor decides that Mithril's staged seajacking of his cruise on Christmas Eve is his glorious moment to play John McClain and attempts to thwart the "terrorists". This probably would have ended rather quickly if he hadn't immediately designated Tesa (the commanding officer of the mission) as the designated Damsel in Distress and "rescued "her from her own subordinates (who are understandably unwilling to fire on their CO). Tessa then spends the rest of the volume unsuccessfully attempting to escape her would-be rescuer and get back in contact with her crew.
• Genesis Climber MOSPEADA has resident Badass Biker Babe Houquet (Rook Bartley in Robotech) getting upset when Stig and Ray rescue her in a bar fight during their second meeting.
• In the later half of the Magic Knight Rayearth anime, the main trio are captured by various invading countries. The girls are shown to be perfectly able to handle their respective situations, so when Ferio swoops in and rescues Fuu, she complains about him being reckless and notes he didn't consider how she'd feel if he'd been hurt in the process.
• Maken-ki!: Because of a childhood tragedy involving Takeru's mother, he's developed a compulsive predisposition to protect women. Which makes him an annoyance to the girls at Tenbi, who're more than capable of defending themselves — some of whom, are far stronger than he is.
• An interesting case in Naruto. Naruto and Sakura are continually attempting to rescue Sasuke. Not only does he not want in the slightest to be rescued and dragged back to Konoha, he usually attempts to kill his friends for their troubles. Not that they give up. When Sasuke rescues himself from the imminent danger (by killing the then-Big Bad), Naruto and Sakura go on trying to rescue him from himself. The current method seems to be by either killing him or by fighting him and having both sides simultaneously destroy each other.
• One Piece:
  • After Robin's long alliance with Crocodile ends with the discovery that the Alabasta poneglyph was another dead end, she loses hope and decides to just die as the tomb collapses only for Luffy to save her. When she protests she wants to die, Luffy bluntly tells her he has no reason to obey her wishes. She ends up joining the Straw Hats due to her interest in Luffy.
  • When the Straw Hats go to save Robin after she decides to surrender to the World Government, she not only complains, she uses her powers violently on her comrade Usopp to make him and all the other Straw Hats understand that she wants to die. However, it turns out her resistance is due to two major reasons. One, she's afraid of the Straw Hats being wiped out in their effort to save her, and two, she fears that if she stays with them, they'll eventually betray her like everyone who took her in since she was eight did. Only when they go all in and declare war on the World Government itself does she realize there is no way back for them, and that they'll never betray her. She then gives them the green light to save her, and it becomes a Happily Failed Suicide.
  • The Marineford arc is an interesting case in that it's not an unwanted rescue as much as it is unwanted rescuers. As Ace is about to get publicly executed, his own personal baggage has him value the lives of his rescuers above his own. When Whitebeard and his subordinate crews show up at Marineford, Ace tries to take responsibility for getting captured, only for Whitebeard to shrug him off and declare that he only pursued Blackbeard because he ordered him to. Not long after, Ace's brother Luffy also shows up at Marineford after having previously attempted to break Ace out of prison, only to barely miss him. With the world's greatest powers gathered for Ace's execution, Luffy is getting involved in a conflict way out of his league. Ace is horrified that Luffy might get himself killed trying to save him and attempts to alienate him. Luffy just tells him to complain all he likes: he will save him, even if it kills him. At this point Ace realizes that arguing is pointless, and resolves to accept whatever happens to him.
  • A small example in the Dressrosa arc: after Law gets captured by Doflamingo, Luffy infiltrates the palace to rescue him. Law tries to send him off on the basis that they are no longer allies, but Luffy tells him to can it. In truth, Law's plan to kill Doflamingo by incurring Kaido's wrath had gone down the drain, and as such Law did not believe that there was an outcome in which he could win. His attempt to alienate Luffy was just Law trying to give the Straw Hats a way out, since they had no reason to die for his grudge and he was fully prepared to die if it meant taking Doflamingo with him, as long as he was the only one who died. Because he had spent 13 years living for the sake of his revenge, his defeat and capture meant he no longer had a reason to live. Once Luffy rescues him and decides to go after Doflamingo for his own reasons (along with a dozen or so powerhouses whom Doflamingo had conveniently pissed off), Law has a change of heart and decides to go all in and kill Doflamingo himself (just as soon as he can remove his seastone cuffs).
  • Possibly the case in the Whole Cake Island arc, though it's ambiguous as to whether the rescue attempt is wanted. Sanji is forced into an Arranged Marriage with one of Big Mom's daughters, with the implicit threat that Big Mom's forces will come after him (and the rest of the Straw Hats by association) if he doesn't comply. He agrees to go but tells the crew that he's fine and he'll be back later, although whether he really intends to come back and/or if he expected the crew to come after him is left ambiguous. Either way, Luffy (predictably) decides to go rescue him.
• In the culmination of the Psycho-Pass 3: First Inspector, Koichi Azusawa is left dumbfound by the fact that Sibyl, which he was chasing after all this time, rejected him. Sibyl then asks the Public Safety Bureau inspector at the scene, Shindou Arata, to "prosecute" Azusawa. Arata is absolutely opposed to this idea and scores an ideological victory, forcing Sibyl to reconsider the execution of Azusawa. The latter, however, sees no point in living anymore and instantly assaults Arata to force the Crime Coeffecient above the non-lethal Paralyzer threshold, trying to get himself shot with an Eliminator instead.
• In The Rising of the Shield Hero, Motoyasu frees Raphtalia from her slavery to Naofumi. The trouble is Raphtalia genuinely wants to be Naofumi's slave because of how well he treats her, and because it also grants her legal protection due to having a master that's one of the Four Heroes. As a result, Raphtalia immediately lays into Motoyasu for his short-sighted, self-righteous, Holier Than Thou behavior, saying that he never thinks anything he does through, and is smart enough to realize that Motoyasu only "freed" Raphtalia because she was a slave, refusing to even ask if she needed his help. Then, Raphtalia hits him with a "The Reason You Suck" Speech by saying Naofumi can train her, heal her, and protect her. Raphtalia finishes by asking Motoyasu that if Naofumi can do all that, can he do that too, considering that owning slaves is apparently beneath him? It shocks Motoyasu so much that he remains in Stunned Silence until Naofumi and Raphtalia leave.
• Happens a couple of times in Sonic X:
  • In the wake of Perfect Chaos' attack on Station Square, Sonic hears a voice crying out for help from beneath some rubble. It turns out to be Bokkun, who refuses to thank Sonic and angrily insists that if he'd known it was him, he wouldn't have cried out for him.
  • When Amy shows up to break Sonic out of Prison Island, he initially tells her to leave him be, having gotten himself Captured on Purpose in the hope of finding out more about Shadow. Subverted when Amy reveals that Shadow himself is also on the island, at which point Sonic just busts out of the cell on his own.
• In Snow White with the Red Hair Shirayuki is "rescued" from the Tanburn palace by being jumped, drugged and spirited away. The problem is that even if she doesn't care for Tanburn's royalty she was there as a guest representing a neighboring country and was in no need of rescuing. This means they kidnapped her and injured her friend Obi in the process because they are projecting their own experiences on an entirely different situation. On top of this by the time she wakes from being drugged she and her "rescuer" have been grabbed by cruel slave traders.
• Early in the movie Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust, D is tasked with rescuing a woman from the vampire Count Meier Link. However, in the midst of his first fight with Meier, he suddenly hears her call out his name. The revelation is enough of a shock to make D break off the fight, since this is when he realizes he never got the whole story: that she was a willing participant in the whole affair, and that the two are actually trying to elope.

Audio Plays

• Cally teleports Jenna out of a suicide run in the Blake's 7 audio "Warship" and gets shouted at for her trouble, because Jenna had been planning to slingshot around the alien fleet.

Comic Books

• Agents of Atlas: The team formed to rescue Eisenhower from the Golden Claw. Flashbacks show that he wasn't exactly in a lot of peril. Golden Claw later admits that Eisenhower had in fact been incessantly bugging him about building a massive golf course, and he'd been hoping for the heroes to take him off his hands.
• In the City of Heroes tie-in comics, Statesman went missing at a time the world needed him most (Everyone's super-powers and technology had gone kaput). So the remaining Freedom Phalanx members disobeyed his direct orders (given via a recorded message) and set out to find him. They discovered him being tortured by several former super-villains, and rescue him. His thanks? Calling them all idiots and informing them that he had HIRED those villains and WANTED to get tortured so that he'd have the means to reactivate his powers (somehow). Oops.
• Green Arrow in The Dark Knight Returns hates Superman for saving him from being killed by a bomb, due to the fact that the only way Superman could save him involved Arrow losing one of his arms, rendering him practically useless as a vigilante. As payback, he agrees to help Batman fight against Superman when they square off in Crime Alley during the climax.
• Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith. After Darth Vader is swept away by a Giant Wall of Watery Doom, the Inquisitors commandeer a submarine and go after him. Vader however just wants to know if they've found the Jedi they're hunting, because if they haven't then they should not have wasted time.
  Vader: You are fools. I never need (Gloved Fist of Doom) rescue.
• In the Carl Barks Donald Duck story "Race to the South Seas", news that Scrooge McDuck was lost at sea drives him and his lazy jerkass cousin Gladstone Gander to race each other to the rescue. Naturally, Gladstone reaches Scrooge first, but Scrooge explains he got himself lost at sea to get away from relatives, and cuts him out of his will. Donald, who was nearby, wisely kept himself out of Scrooge's sight.
• In one issue of Doom Patrol, Robotman saves a woman he found in the trunk of a man's car at a gas station. As soon as the coast was clear, he set her down and she started running from him, throwing rocks to impede his movement... turns out she was the guy's girlfriend, and they were trying to spice things up, and it was her idea in the first place.
• In an issue of DV8, Copycat, who suffers from multiple personality disorder, is furious at her teammates for rescuing her from a virtual solitary confinement cell, because her imprisonment allowed her five personalities to integrate, allowing her a brief period of contentment.
• Subverted in an arc in Fantastic Four, in which Reed, Sue and Johnny travel to the afterlife to rescue the deceased Ben, only to learn that Ben doesn't want to be rescued, and in fact their attempts to rescue him are seemingly preventing him from entering Paradise. However, it soon transpires that Ben is actually preventing himself from entering Paradise; he's not ready to die, but his subconscious can't admit this to himself.
• In The Beginning, a Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) comic series, Sally Acorn attempts to uncover the secret to undoing Roboticizer technology using boots specially designed by Rotor. She set up a 'negotiation' with Robotnik, fully expecting him to betray her and roboticize her. Naturally (or rather unnaturally) he delivers, saying that 'machines can't make or break promises' after Sally accuses him of doing the latter, keeping up the act. Sonic, Tails and Antoine arrive on the scene before she is put through the machine however and 'rescue' her. Back at Knothole, Rotor asks her how it went. She promptly explains what happened to him, with Sonic and his compatriots very confused at her displeasure. She storms off after Rotor tells them what the boots were for.
• In the "Flight of the Firebird" arc in Suicide Squad, the Squad is sent into Russia to free a dissident writer from The Gulag. After breaking her out, they discover that she did not want to be rescued. So long as she was in prison, she was a symbol to other dissidents. If she escaped, she became just another defector. Ultimately she was killed during the escape attempt, thus becoming a martyr.
• Supergirl:
  • In Vol 1 #9, Linda Danvers/Kara Zor-El - the titular heroine - saves a pilot who was caught in a downdraft. He then complains claiming he was practicing a stunt and had to wait for weeks for the perfect weather conditions.
  • In H'el on Earth, when the Justice League storms the captured Fortress of Solitude, The Flash is tasked with finding and rescuing Supergirl. However, Supergirl doesn't want to be rescued becauses she's working with H'el at the time.
  • In The Final Days of Superman, Superman seeks his cousin out, who has been missing for several weeks. When he finally finds Supergirl, she is unconscious and strapped to a chair at a Government facility. So he bashes his way into the place, rips Supergirl out of some sort of weird device, and flies her away. When Kara comes around, she tells him she did NOT need saving because they were helping her get her powers back.
• The furry comic, Xanadu has Tabbe Le Fauve captured, stripped and thrown into the Unicorn Pool. Considering that the beautiful and randy unicorn Empress Alicia then joins him for some sex, Tabbe obviously is in no hurry to be rescued for a while. Unfortunately, that is exactly when his partner, Johathon the mule, gets him out of the pool and the arms of Alicia with Tabbe howling, "But I don't want to be rescued!"

Fan Works

• In Being Dead Ain't Easy, when Joey goes to rescue him in the Soul Room, Kaiba refuses all help because he wants to stay there.
• In Children of Time, Beth Lestrade breaks into Professor Moriarty's base of operations to rescue Sherlock Holmes... Only to find that Holmes has done a Face–Heel Turn and doesn't want to be saved. He, in fact, has been contemplating suicide. And then Moriarty arrives...
• In Daphne Greengrass and the Preemptive Adulterer Daphne is angry when, after she jumps off a tower with her sister Astoria in her arms, Harry magically breaks their fall.
• In Faith and Doubt, everybody tries "rescuing" Twilight from the phantom giving her dark powers. Twilight is horrified by the thought, because she is Not Brainwashed and is happier with her new abilities.
• Initially seems to apply in Final Adventure- the third part of the trilogy that began with Disney's War — A Crossover Story- when Merida finds Elsa in her own dungeon and Elsa explains that she wants to be there to keep her kingdom safe while Hans acts as her regent and searches for Anna... until Merida reveals that Hans has been telling everyone that Elsa and Anna are dead while he takes charge.
• Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail: After learning about the Train, Goh wants to save Chloe and bring her home... so that things can go back to normal, despite how miserable his Childhood Friend was. His ignorance of her feelings do him no favors; when she finally gets across to him that he can't 'rescue' her and be Easily Forgiven, he turns bitter and starts blaming her for everything.
• The plot of The Lion's Den kicks off when Komaeda "rescues" Naegi from the despair-filled outside world.
• Luo Binghe in Lotus Seeds finds his disappeared Shizun within the Lotus Eaters' realm and abducts him in spite of Shen Qingqiu's desperate pleas to be left there, since he will die outside. As his Shizun dies in his arms barely a few seconds after the rescue, Luo Binghe realizes that Shen Qingqiu's fears were quite justified.
• In Repairs, Retrofits and Upgrades, Kuvira is approached this way by soldiers still loyal to her, but they don't understand that she's trying to reform and accepts her imprisonment.
• In Second Bite of the Cherry, Granny Zhou panics when she sees Lan Wangji with Wei Ying, believing the girl is threatened into letting herself be taken to Gusu and married, and it takes some time and the reveal that Lan Wangji is her grandson to calm her down.
• In With Strings Attached, the four rescue about 40 people from being shrunken pets in a basement terrarium, and take them back to C'hou... but they forget to mention that C'hou is in a completely different universe, and it's a one-way trip, so now the refugees are permanently separated from their homes. For the rest of the book, they refer to the four as kidnappers.

Film — Animated

• The Adventures of Mark Twain: During the "Diary of Adam & Eve" segment, Eve falls into a pond and after getting "strangled" by the water, she concludes that the fish are also uncomfortable and takes them out. As Adam notes, the fish aren't much happier on dry land, "only quieter."
• In the final scenes of Ice Age: The Meltdown, Sid the sloth resurrects Scrat the squirrel from a Near-Death Experience, in which Scrat had experienced the squirrel version of heaven: thus, Scrat proceeds to attack Sid for "saving" him.
• The Incredibles has Oliver Sansweet, who files a Frivolous Lawsuit against Mr. Incredible for foiling his suicide attempt.
  Oliver Sansweet's Lawyer: Mr. Sansweet didn't asked to be saved. Mr. Sansweet didn't want to be saved. And the injuries received from Mr. Incredible's "actions", so-called, causes him daily pain.
  • Followed by a class-action lawsuit by the passengers of a train that Mr. Incredible stopped from falling off the rails by jumping in its way, causing several injuries from the sudden stop. And then a spree of lawsuits by other rescuees against their rescuers that resulted in all the world's superheroes hanging up their capes for fifteen years.
• Shrek:
  • Fiona, though at first pleased to be saved, no longer wants to be after it is revealed that her rescuer is an ogre, and will not leave until Shrek forces her to.
  • By the next day, however, she's warmed up to Shrek, and is most unimpressed when Robin Hood swings in and snatches her away.
• In Toy Story 2, Woody at first wants to escape Al's penthouse and return to Andy's home, but after learning about Jessie's abandonment story, and with encouraging words from Stinky Pete, he couldn't bring himself to make an Air-Vent Passageway escape and abandon his Roundup Gang. When Buzz and his rescue team arrive, Woody tells him that he's accepting his fate as a display in a Japanese toy museum, but has second thoughts after Buzz leaves.
• In Twice Upon a Time, Rod Rescueman hears Flora Fauna performing in one of the Murkworks' filmed nightmares and thinks she's a genuine Damsel in Distress and jumps to her rescue. Not only does Rod interrupt Flora's big scene, he accidentally punches her while fighting off the supposed threat.

Film — Live Action

• In Addams Family Reunion, Lurch saves a Rich Bitch from drowning and gives her CPR. She isn't very grateful.
• In The Brain That Wouldn't Die, a Mad Scientist doctor accidentally kills his girlfriend in a car accident. He takes her decapitated head and revives it, but she is none too happy about the situation and ultimately starts plotting murder-suicide.
• Harvey Dent isn't at all happy in The Dark Knight when Batman saves him instead of his would-be fiancée, Rachel Dawes. Admittedly, Batman believed he was saving Rachel, but the Joker switched Harvey and Rachel's locations round.
• D.E.B.S.: After superspy Amy is kidnapped by supervillain Lucy Diamond, her friends search for her and eventually find her...with Lucy, in bed, naked.
• In Ella Enchanted, Lucinda frees Ella from her chains, which were holding her back from killing Char. She then puts her in a fancy dress and teleports her to the ballroom, under the pretense that she's doing her a favor.
• Lieutenant Dan Taylor in Forrest Gump, as this video will show. He wants to die in combat, especially after being badly injured (like most of his male relatives have done), but Forrest insists on carrying him off the battlefield.
• Lost in Alaska: The film starts with George trying to save Joe McDermott, who doesn't appreciate it — he was trying to commit suicide by drowning after his girlfriend dumped him.
• Life (2017): The film ends with the two leads evacuating the ship in their own vessels. One contains David and an intelligent, extremely adaptful alien named "Calvin" that spent the film hunting down the crew members (a la Alien). David wrestles the alien and directs the vessel towards space so it can't reach earth. The other pod contains Miranda and is destined for earth. We see one pod hit by space depris and the other hurdle towards earth. The Plot Twist is that the pod propelled into deep space was Miranda's, and the vessel that landed on earth contained David and Calvin. It lands near a Vietnamese fishery where two men approach the pod. They encover the entrance to the pod and see David who is trapped by the alien's various limbs. He screams for them to stay away and not help, but they don't know what he is saying. The alien was obviously intelligent enough to know that humans would want to approach and rescue whoever is inside. We see a ship approaching in the distance with more people, suggesting a grim fate for humanity.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail
  • Sir Galahad was clearly reluctant to leave the nymphomaniac-populated Castle Anthrax. It was apparent the rescuers were protecting his chastity (his title is Galahad the Chaste).
  • Sir Lancelot goes and slaughters a wedding party to rescue a damsel lad in distress, to the horror of the king. Lancelot is then married off to the bride-to-be as compensation for the damage.
• The entire point of The Professionals (so much so that merely listing the movie under this trope is a spoiler; maybe that's why it wasn't here before?)
• In Quantum of Solace, James Bond rescues Camille from the boat of the evil General Medrano, knocking her unconscious in the process. Later he finds out that her being on the General's boat was the culmination of her lifelong plan of revenge on the General for raping and killing her family. Needless to say, she wasn't happy.
• In Saw VI it was a lesson that Officer Rigg needed to learn. In his last test, if he had waited for the clock to run out, he would've likely have saved Eric Matthews.
• In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the rest of the crew save Kirk and McCoy right as the warden was about to reveal the identity of the true assassin.
• Soran's rescue from the Nexus in Star Trek: Generations. The rest of the movie deals with his obsession about returning there at any cost.
• Combined with a hostage situation in Swordfish. The bad guy has strapped the hostages with explosives that will go off if they get too far away from him. Two police officers who are Too Dumb to Live manage to grab one of the hostages and drag her away from the scene while she is fighting to get back inside. She blows up.
• Tower Heist: Josh helps stop several men who are spiriting businessman Arthur Shaw away in their car, only to find out it was an attempt to flee justice and not a kidnapping.
• Under the Silver Lake: It is eventually revealed that Sarah was not kidnapped, but joined the cult voluntarily, and thus never needed to be saved. However, it's played with in that it isn't clear in her and Sam's final conversation if she regrets what she's done or would want to be saved if she could be - she simply says that it's pointless to try.
• Played for laughs in the Western spoof The Villain when Handsome Stranger heroically leaps onto and reins in a team of runaway horses and their wagon... only to belatedly realize that it's the fire brigade rushing to the site of a burning building, and everyone's furious with him for preventing them getting to the fire.

Gamebooks

• One of the books from the Cretan Chronicles allows you to rescue a young man about to be sacrificed to the Furies - avian monsters with women's heads - only for the man to berate you for saving him. As it turns out, the Furies are messengers of the Gods, and the man is actually honored to be part of a sacrificial ritual.

Literature

• Happens in Yaoi Genre Ai no Kusabi. When Guy drugs and kidnaps Riki to hide him away from Iason who had previously kidnapped Riki and forced him to be a Sex Slave, Riki complains and doesn't want to be rescued since he has secretly fallen in love with Iason.
• In Arthur the Brave, an Arthur book from the Arthur's Family Values series, Arthur decides to try to be a hero after D.W. tells him that he's nothing like Bionic Bunny and that he's "Arthur the Silly." When he smells smoke, he throws a bucket of water at Mr. Read, only to ruin dinner. He encounters Grandma Thora and insists on helping her cross the street, only for her to say that she didn't want to cross the street, as she was waiting for a friend at the park on the side she was already on.
• When Jason from The Beyonders rescues Tark from his suicidal venture off a waterfall with his band mates, Tark swears to find him and get his revenge, believing he (Tark) should have died with his friends to finish the ritual that would summon a hero to save the world. Ironically, unbeknownst to him, Jason is the exact hero that he and his friends succeeded in summoning before they died.
• Blott on the Landscape: On the night of Lady Maud's attempted seduction of Dundridge, her adoring gardener Blott mistakes her laughter for cries of distress, and rushes over with his shotgun and bedroom slippers to defend her. He finds her alone, unmolested, free as a bird and in danger of nothing except getting cold. She gives him a rather haughty dressing-down and sends him off.
• In Brewster's Millions, the attempts of concerned friends to either intervene in the protagonist's feverish spending of his newly inherited millions or wisely invest his money so that he'll save at least some of it tend only to frustrate the protagonist, since unknown to them he has to spend the original inheritance in order to gain an even bigger one.
• In The Death of the Vazir Mukhtar, a poor (in both meanings of the word) German father is surprised to find out that his abducted daughter is perfectly happy in a luxurious Persian harem and doesn't want to go back to his chores. He is eventually forced to renounce her, as she does him.
• Terry Pratchett's Discworld:
  • The Light Fantastic: Cohen the Barbarian rescues a girl from a druidic sacrifice, only for the girl to complain that she had been waiting all her life to be a Virgin Sacrifice so she could get into paradise. What's more, Cohen's back goes as he tries to hoist the girl over his shoulder, and it ends up with the girl carrying him out of the stone circle.
  • The Colour of Magic: Rincewind and Twoflower "rescue" Hrun the Barbarian from marrying the stunningly beautiful Liessa and, in the process, become King of the Wyrmberg.
• In Elijah of Buxton, MaWee is actually pretty upset that the Preacher came and took him from his circus life and brought him back to Buxton.
• The Empirium Trilogy: After the Queen of Celdaria tumbles off a balcony and dies, Rielle is able to resurrect her. Upon being revived, Queen Genoveve weeps, wishing she had been left for dead so she could see her recently deceased husband again.
• In the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, an Affectionate Parody of fairy tales, Princess Cimorene runs away to work for a dragon in order to escape her Arranged Marriage. She has to keep dissuading her fiancé and others from trying to rescue her.
  • To the point where she challenges the knights herself, suggests other captured princesses they could rescue instead, puts up a sign saying that the path to her dragon's cave is out, and eventually changes her title to "Chief Cook and Librarian" so that "saving" her sounds like a less glamorous rescue mission. She also horrifies one of the knights when she explains that the dragon is out borrowing a crêpe pan. Explaining why the dragon is borrowing a crêpe pan leads to the exclamation "You DO like it here!"
• The medieval chronicle of the Danes, Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus, tells the story of Starkad who after having slain nine brothers in single combat angrily refused the aid of three passers-by he considered dishonourable, although his guts were hanging out of his belly. The rest of his story is pretty much like that as well.
• In The Hermit Thrush Sings by Susan Butler, the main character, a girl trying to make her way through the wilderness, befriends some of the Brimba, wild bear-ape hybrid creatures that live in the forest. Since all of the people in her world have been taught these creatures are dangerous, when a human friend of hers sees her in the vicinity of one, he tries to sneak her away from it despite her protests that it's friendly. By then, the Brimba has come to view her as a friend and sees a strange human trying to drag her away, resulting in two simultaneous unwanted rescues.
• A Hunger in the Soul by Mike Resnick has an adventurer-journalist looking to find a doctor, missing on an alien world, who can cure a disease ravaging human civilisation. After abusing and eventually murdering the native inhabitants in his quest, he's able to find the doctor who hasn't been lost at all, having decided from the actions of people like the journalist that humanity deserves everything it gets.
• Subversion: In Alan Dean Foster's Journeys of the Catechist trilogy, Etjole Ehomba promises a dying man that he will rescue the beautiful Visioness Themaryl, who has been kidnapped by the sorcerer/warlord Hymneth the Possessed, and return her to her home city. After many adventures, he and his companions storm Hymneth's fortress to discover that the Visoness has decided to stay, believing that her influence can make him less evil. Etjole proceeds to bring her home by force. As soon as they arrive, and he has fulfilled his promise, Etjole takes her right back to Hymneth.
• In the classic Scottish novel The Merry Muses, a tourist from England forcibly rescues a Scotsman who's about to commit suicide. The Scotsman sues him for assault. And wins, because one notable difference between Scots law and English law is that under Scots law, committing suicide is legal.
• Fell, from Pact, was Born into Slavery to an Incarnation of Conquest, like two generations of his family before him. The only means of resistance his family were permitted was to become Death Seekers, being as reckless as they could in fulfilling their goals, in ways that might cost them their lives or hurt Conquest as much as it benefited him. However, when Blake Thorburn challenges Conquest to a contest, he selects Fell as one of his champions, forcing Conquest to temporarily release Fell. This is much to the displeasure of both Fell and Conquest, and Fell knows that he'll be punished harshly for his perceived defiance when Blake is crushed—and he knows that Blake has drastically misunderstood the local power dynamics, so he'll find no allies. Fell becomes a Sour Supporter of Blake's contest, admitting that much as he hates the rescue he knows that this is the best chance his family will have of being free.
• The Rescue of Omar Ganski: The police knew Ganski was innocent, and were keeping him in a nice hotel room while they tracked the real killer's mafia connections, until Ganski's friends blew the cover.
• In Shards of Honor, Cordelia's crew turns up to rescue her from the Barrayarans, who have a reputation for brutality. But not only have they been treating Cordelia extremely well, but the rescuers also unwittingly reignite a (politically motivated, undeserved) mutiny the Barrayaran commander has just finished suppressing. Cordelia has to help defeat the mutineers all over again before she is willing to leave.
• In The Shattered World, Tahrynyar is so unwilling to be saved by Pandrogas, the sorcerer who'd been having an affair with his wife, that he deliberately averts his own Unwanted Rescue, letting go of the cliff's edge before Pandrogas can cast the spell to propel him to safety.
• In the second Warrior Cats book, Fire and Ice, Fireheart realizes that Sandpaw and the enemy warrior that she's fighting are about to fall into the gorge, so he knocks the other warrior away from her (and from the edge) and pulls Sandpaw off the edge and to her feet. Sandpaw's furious at him for "saving" her from the enemy warrior because she already dislikes Fireheart and insists she can fight her own battles, but just then another cat falls over the edge and drowns. That makes Sandpaw realize what Fireheart had actually been saving her from, and she grows more friendly toward him from then on.
• In The Wheel of Time Siuan, against Egwene's explicit order, leads a raid to rescue her from the White Tower where she was being held captive as rebel Amyrlin. The order was given so the latter could undermine Elaida's authority by showing more efficiency and dignity as a leader even while being her captive, but this is almost ruined when the Tower Aes Sedai were suddenly reminded that she was the rebel leader.
• They discover that Asha, in The Wishing Maiden, actually put herself in captivity and isn't very happy to have been found.

Live-Action TV

• Played with some dark humor in the Babylon 5 episode "Convictions". When Londo and G'Kar are trapped in a burning elevator during a terrorist attack on the station, G'Kar says with some glee that he welcomes their fate because it would give him a chance to see Londo die, without invoking the penalty imposed by the Centauri (after the conquest and surrender of Narn) for a Narn killing a Centauri, which was the execution of 500 Narn including the killer's family. G'Kar laughs about this "good fortune" while Londo screams that he is crazy. When they are rescued, he expresses some disappointment in the Universe that this fate didn't pan out. (Note: the terrorist attack had nothing to do with the Narn-Centauri conflict.)
• In the Blackadder Goes Forth episode "Private Plane", Blackadder and Baldrick have been shot down over German territory and imprisoned by Baron von Richthofen who plans to give them "a fate worse than a fate worse than death"... being sent to Germany to teach young girls Home Economics. Naturally Blackadder is thrilled at the idea of leaving the trenches and the pointless war for good... until Lord Flasheart arrives to rescue him.
  • When Blackadder attempts to stall the rescue, Flashheart works out his game and forces them to come with him. (Though he makes it up to him slightly by headbutting Darling)
• Breaking Bad: In the episode "To'hajiilee", after Walt gets lured to the place where he buried his money by Jesse, thereby revealing its location, he calls Jack Welker's gang for backup to take care of him, only to call it off when he realizes Jesse is accompanied by Hank and Steve Gomez. At this point, Walt has given up and lets Hank arrest him. Jack and his men show up anyway, ignoring Walt begging them not to. A shootout ensues, leaving both DEA agents dead and Walt free, but at the cost of his brother-in-law and six-sevenths of the money he vainly offered Jack in exchange for his life.
• At the start of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's sixth season, Buffy is "saved" from hell by her friends. Problem is, she wasn't in hell but in heaven and was content that way.
• A 'misunderstanding' example in the third season Castle episode" One Life to Lose", where Castle believes his mother is being threatened with a knife by the man he believes is the murderer. When he and Beckett burst in on them, though, it turns out the knife the suspect was holding was only a plastic prop, and they were acting out a scene. (Castle's mother picked out a suitable apology in a catalog later that night.
• Done hilariously on Charmed (1998). When Phoebe and Piper turn up, Prue and her naked "kidnapper" are making out, after having enjoyed a night together. No one's very thrilled.
• In CSI, the A-plot in the episode "Unleashed" turns out to be this. The victim was living as a Human Pet (the BDSM variant of that trope, though sex seems to be entirely absent from the arrangement) in the mansion of a rich dentist, along with several other women (the arrangement was entirely consensual and the women could have left at any time). Unfortunately, her former assistant (the victim used to work at a shelter for abused women) assumed the victim had been brainwashed and wanted to "free" her, which led to the victim's death.
• Doctor Who:
  • When Barbara (in a God Guise) acts to spare the Human Sacrifice in "The Aztecs", the chosen sacrifice instead throws himself to his death off the top of the pyramid: being chosen as a sacrifice being a great honour in Aztec society.
  • In "The Web of Fear", the Doctor submits to a plan which allows the Intelligence to drain his mind. His companions try to stop him and he fights them off. It turns out that he was not fighting them because he was controlled; rather, he had sabotaged the machine so that he would drain the Intelligence instead and his companions, by rescuing him, had allowed the Big Bad to get away.
  • In "The Night of the Doctor", Cass prefers death to rescue by the Doctor, because the Time War has so ravaged the universe that she considers the Time Lords no better than the Daleks.
• In one episode of The Drew Carey Show, friends and relatives worry over the fate of comatose Drew and come close to pulling the plug on him if he doesn't recover because he requested that of his brother — but in reality he's having the time of his life with a giant party inside his head. Complete with his brother saying "I can't imagine what kind of hell he's in right now" followed immediately by a cut to him enjoying himself.
• The plot of Galavant is kicked off when the evil King Richard kidnaps Galavant's beloved, Madalena, to be his queen. While she does want to be rescued at first, after a few days, she decides that she'd rather have a lifestyle of wealth and comfort with a man she hates, rather than going back to living in poverty with Galavant, and she spurns him when he shows up to rescue her.
• On Lost, Kate leads a rescue attempt to recover Jack, even though he's told her not to come back to the Others' campground. When she manages to sneak in, he tells her to get out, because what Kate doesn't know is that Jack is scheduled to leave the island the next morning.
• In the Murdoch Mysteries two-parter "The Long Goodbye", Lewellyn Watts, imprisoned for "immorality", refuses to leave the cell when he's told the charge has been dropped and declares himself on hunger strike until he gets his day in court. Violet Hart persuades him to at least drink some water. When he subsequently realises it was laced with the vitamin compound that she used to sell, he's furious that she took away his agency. She counters that dying wasn't going to do his cause any good.
• Happened all the time on Robin Hood with Damsel Scrappy Kate, who (for whatever reason) just didn't seem to like it when the outlaws saved her life. By the fifth or sixth time, the audience was begging the outlaws to simply let natural selection do its job.
• In Saving Hope, Dr. Goran's first surgery at the titular Hope Zion hospital involves doing an experimental procedure that could (and ultimately does) save the patients arm, instead of amputating it like the patient wanted. Dr. Goran tries to talk the patient out of his survivor's guilt (he was injured in war) so he won't feel like he needs to be punished by losing his arm but is unsuccessful and the patient ungratefully sues the hospital (and wins.)
• One Sesame Street sketch has Mr. Johnson at a baseball game hoping to catch a fowl ball when Grover comes up selling hot dogs. Throughout the sketch, as Grover is preparing Mr. Johnson's hot dog a fowl ball comes up, and Grover tries to protect him and push him out of the way, leaving Mr. Johnson increasingly frustrated. Finally, as he's chewing out Grover, another fowl ball comes, and hits him on the head knocking him out. Grover ends up catching the ball.
• Stargate SG-1, season six episode "The Other Guys": a pair of scientists save the team from capture... but in reality the team let themselves be captured so they could get in touch with a mole in the enemy army, and the scientists have all but ruined the plan. That is, until the mole is caught, so the team now actually needs rescuing.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: In "Darmok", Picard finally pieces together the Tamarian captain Dathon's language and plan: join forces to fight a common foe (a dangerous beast on El-Adrel). Unfortunately, the Enterprise manages to lock on to Picard while he and Dathon are fighting the beast and tries to beam Picard back, and without Picard's help, Dathon gets mortally injured.
• Star Trek: Voyager: Played for laughs in "Thirty Days" with the "Captain Proton" holoprogram. Harry Kim (playing Proton's sidekick Buster Kincaid) has been captured and chained up by the Twin Mistresses of Evil (played by the ship's babes, Megan and Jenny Delaney from Stellar Cartography). Needless to say Ensign Kim is not particularly bothered by this.
  Buster/Kim: Torture me all you want, Demonica, I'll never crack!
  Demonica/Jenny: Oh, but you will.
  Malicia/Megan: By the time we're through with you, you'll be begging to tell us everything you know.
  Demonica/Jenny: You'll be our puppet.
  Malicia/Megan: (stroking finger up and down his chest) Our slave.
  Buster/Kim: (enthusiastically) Great! You're doing great!
  (Tom Paris [playing the hero Captain Proton] bursts into the room waving a raygun)
  Proton/Paris: You're done for, Demonica!
  Malicia/Megan: Malicia! She's Demonica.
  Proton/Paris: Whatever. You two are going to jail for a very long time.
  Buster/Kim: I've got everything under control, Proton! Shouldn't you be getting back to Headquarters?
• In season eight of Supernatural, Castiel is rescued from Purgatory, even though he already passed up an opportunity to leave, willingly choosing to stay in order to do penance for previous actions that he regretted. He doesn't have much of an opportunity to get angry with his rescuers about it however, as they mind-wiped him so he wouldn't remember how he got out, and then moved on to mind-controlling him for almost half the season.
• In the Torchwood episode "Combat", Owen Harper is sent undercover to infiltrate an undercover fight club for men with too much money and too little sense of purpose whose main event involves seeing who can last the longest in a cage with a captured Weevil. After he's forced into the cage at gunpoint, the rest of his team bursts in guns a-blazing, shuts down the ring, and pulls him out. In the hospital afterward with his injuries, he explains that he didn't want saving- somehow, his time in the cage gave him a sense of peace he had never felt before. This isn't explained further, but he might just be suicidal.
• In season two of True Blood, Sookie and Eric try to rescue Eric's maker Godric from the Fellowship of the Sun. It turns out he was there on purpose, and wanted to die.
• In the episode "The Living And The Dead" from the fourth series of Warehouse 13 after Artie suffers a BSOD after killing Leena while under the influence of the Astrolabe he retreats inside his own mind, where he seems happy and really doesn't want Claudia and Steve to rescue him.

Music

• The novelty song "Cowboy Convention", first recorded by The Ohio Express in 1969, and later a favorite of Buck Owens^note He produced a version performed by his guitarist Don Rich and his son Buddy Alan, and he also performed it on Hee Haw. In The Wild West, the narrator keeps getting trapped by savage natives before getting rescued by a bunch of famous Western heroes (real and fictional). In the final verse, though, he gets captured by a friendly chief who offers him a home and his choice of an Indian Maiden to settle down with. To his consternation, the heroes rescue him again.

Newspaper Comics

• In the Modesty Blaise arc "The Vanishing Dollybirds'', Modesty and Willy set out to break up a white slavery ring. However, at the end, it turns out that the girl they originally set out to rescue is perfectly happy as a member of the sheik's harem.

Pinball

• The promotional comic book for Strange Science ends with Todd bursting in to rescue his girlfriend Jodi, only to find that her mind is now in the body of a chimpanzee. She notes, "Save me?! He's gotta be kidding — this is the most fun I've had in years!"

Puppet Shows

• In "Boys Will Be Boys" from Bear in the Big Blue House, Tutter dresses up as the knight "Tutter the Great" and tells Ojo that he's saving her from a dragon. She, however, tells him that she's playing house and doesn't need to be saved.
  Tutter: Poor, cute little Ojo. You don't have to act brave any longer.

Video Games

• Many an Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game newbie has tried to pull a Big Damn Hero moment, only to be berated for kill-stealing. Turns out that when Death Is a Slap on the Wrist, people would rather lose their lives than have to spend more time on that trophy-collection quest. Naturally, this is less likely to happen in MMOs where targets are "tapped" by a small amount of damage, such as World of Warcraft, since killing another player's tapped target is not kill-stealing, though such a kill might, in limited circumstances, screw things up in other ways.
  • During classic WoW, raiding hunters underwent a quest to obtain a very powerful bow. The bulk of the quest line involved killing 4 powerful demons 100% alone, not even the hunter's pet could help. If anything other than the hunter appeared on the demon's threat list it would instantly despawn. These fights generally involved a lot of (what from the outside looked like) frantic running around using very odd abilities a hunter would normally rarely ever use. Many a "helpful" player royally pissed off a hunter who knew exactly what he was doing by "swooping to the rescue" of the poor hunter they happened to be riding past, who's pet had died and who was in "serious danger" from an elite demon. The fights were so tightly choreographed that the hunter couldn't even stop what he was doing to type a "NO!" should they see a bystander prepare to join in. Most would bring guild members to deal with any other mobs that accidentally aggro and to deter "helpful" passersby.
• Orendi from Battleborn has this in regards to her own rescue in the past. A couple of her lines in PvP has her refer to Marquis having "enslaved" her and her family and such however, exactly what happened between them isn't fully detailed in either of the characters' lore challenges. Battleplan 19 per a discussion on the Battleborn subreddit on the matter addressed this and revealed what exactly happened between Marquis and Orendi. During the joint Eldrid and LLC mission to save her people, Orendi met Phoebe and Marquis. Being the crazy varimorph that she is, she refused being "abducted". For "her own safety", her rescuers were forced to subdue her in order to get her safely off-world. Later upon waking up, she and Marquis got into an altercation of which involved the heated exchange of the terms "hobo" and "slaver". Ever since then, she's had a great hatred for Marquis which continued on even after they joined forces together as Battleborn.
• BioShock: Choosing to rescue Little Sisters ends up as this. While killing her Big Daddy escort she'll be cheering for him to kill you. And once you do kill him, the Sister huddles up in fear.
• Played With beautifully in Braid. It turns out that the princess in the last level is actually running away from the main character.
• In the First-Episode Twist of Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, Wide-Eyed Idealist Kaede is found guilty of accidentally murdering Rantaro in an attempt to kill the mastermind after Monokuma says he'll execute everyone if he doesn't see a murder before the time limit. The Gadfly Kokichi calls her out on this, heavily implying that everyone was prepared to Face Death with Dignity but she ended up playing into Monokuma's hands anyway and kickstarting the Deadly Game. It's even Harsher in Hindsight if the player chose to spend time with him as Kaede, as he explicitly warned her something like this would happen but she didn't believe him.
• In Final Fantasy VII, Cloud and Aerith see Tifa being taken to Don Corneo to be his "bride". After getting into the Don's manor (Cloud even going in Disguised in Drag), Tifa reveals she's undercover and going along with it because the Don has information about Shinra's next move against their group AVALANCHE.
• Final Fantasy X: Two times, Yuna is left alone with Seymour. Both times, she has a hidden agenda and wants the others far away, so she can carry out her plan without interference. Both times, the others storm in and try to save her before she can enact her plan, and the second time, end up a liability, as their lives are used as leverage against her.
• During the "Moving Up" scene in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, The Fans get a call to rescue a guy's sister from a gangster hideout. After the Fans brutally massacre everyone in the building (in Hotline Miami fashion), the panicked girl points a gun at them, revealing that she wasn't held captive and that the gangsters were her friends.
  Girl: You expect me to go with you? Are you insane? You murdered my friends! You're not taking me anywhere! Now leave me the fuck alone! Or I swear...

  If you try to get close to her after this, she'll keep her promise and shoot you.

• In Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, you have to save Vrook from a group of mercenaries who are planning to cash in on a Jedi bounty. However after you defeat them, Vrook reveals that he got himself caught on purpose so that he could track down the person who had put the bounty out in the first place. To make matters worse, your actions have made the rest of the mercs desperate and they proceed to attack the settlers.
• Last Scenario has a variant in which the Big Bad is saved by his Quirky Miniboss Squad. Unfortunately, he swore long ago that he would become strong enough that he would never have to rely on other people. It was bad enough that his defeat showed how weak he was, but his minions' Villainous Valour which included one of them performing a Heroic Sacrifice only amplified his Villainous Breakdown.
• Variation in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Inside Jabu Jabu's belly, Ruto is more concerned with retrieving the Zora's Sapphire than with being rescued, and is more than a little stuck up about the whole thing. Though it is quite clear that she does need help, but is too stubborn to admit it, which is why she "compromises" by allowing him to carry her. After all is done, she does properly thank him for his help and falls in love with him.
• Mass Effect: Andromeda: One quest on Elaaden has Ryder sent looking for a guy's little sister, battling through several criminal hideouts, only to finally encounter the sister in one of those hideouts when she yells at them for killing her goons. Turns out she hadn't been abducted, she'd become a gun-runner of her own free will. Depending on the player's choice, she can either keep at it or reluctantly go back to her brother.
• In Mami's route in Puella Magi Madoka Magica Portable, she encounters a Witch-kissed woman trying to immolate herself with gasoline. After defeating the Witch Gisela by herself, Mami returns to check on the woman... only to find that she really was suicidal, and is none too pleased with Mami for saving her. This can lead directly to Mami's Bad Ending.
• Happens in Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time when Ratchet goes to save Azimuth from Lord Vorselon. It's apparently because he'd rather Ratchet go on to find the Great Clock by himself, rather than waste time to save an old Lombax. Azimuth's rescue did kind of bite Ratchet and almost the whole universe in the ass later, though.
• In Reflections on the River, unless players choose the wrong options, Prince Shun or Princess Yanyu (whichever was kidnapped) declines to be rescued from Zheng (the protagonist). In Shun's case, it's because he's actually quite pleased to get away from what he finds to be a boring, pointless life as Spare to the Throne, and wants to learn from Zheng. With Yanyu, it's a bit more complicated: she's actually a Body Double for the real Yanyu, and although she'd hoped to be rescued, the fact that so little effort is put into the search convinces her that she's considered expendable, and she doesn't want to go back.
• In Reset Generation, players are defeated when their princess is "rescued" by another player. Since the princesses are aware of this fact, all of the rescues are unwanted and they say lines like the one at the top of this page when grabbed.
• In Shuyan Saga, if Shuyan chooses to rescue her mother, she gets called a "foolish, irresponsible child". Apparently, she should have had the sense to flee and seek help from a neighbouring kingdom instead.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic: On the Republic Planetary Story on Hoth, you are charged with retrieving a prototype super weapon from pirates. When you arrive at the base, the pirate in charge knows that he and his crew are out of their league against you and offers you not just the prototype, but multiple copies of it in exchange for letting him and his crew leave with their lives. If you decide to be reasonable, the Chief Engineer arrives with "reinforcements" and the pirate figures you were stalling for time and attacks. After the battle, you have the option of calling out the Chief Engineer.
• Trauma Center has Linda Ried, a young teenage girl who Derek performs surgery on and saves her life. Linda yells at Derek for saving her, saying she never asked to be rescued to begin with and was hoping she would finally be free from her life. When Derek asks why Linda is so suicidal, she goes on about the stress and troubles she faces at school and with her family. Later on, Derek and his team finds out that Linda's suicidal thoughts were exasperated by a strain of GUILT in her body, which is what caused her extreme mood swing. Once the GUILT is taken care of, Linda is no longer suicidal and she appreciates Derek for saving her life.

Web Comics

• This Casey and Andy strip involves Jenn's unwilling rescue from the Hunkinites.
• Serious example: Mo and Sojueilo's squad free Thomil's in Juathuur, depriving them of the fastest way to reach the villain palace.
• In Looking for Group Benny and Temmet are on the verge of signing a peace treaty when Cale and Richard crash through the ceiling, causing the Legarans to assume it was a ploy. Benny is furious after the battle ends due to Cale's "rescue" causing more pointless deaths.
• The very title of No Need for Bushido comes from a protagonist complaining about her rescue. It sets the tone for her relationship with her rescuer for quite a while.
• One Nodwick comic strip (based on a Dungeons & Dragons adventure in Dungeon magazine) involves the heroes rescuing a knight who gave himself up as a hostage/sacrifice to a dragon, leading him to berate them for putting the lives of thousands at risk. "Hey! He made Piffany cry! Get him!"
• In Princess Princess (2012), the two eponymous princesses come across a prince who obviously needs help, but doesn't want to be rescued by women.
• The Sanity Circus: From Posey's point of view, she is 'rescuing' Attley and reminding her of her true nature, as well as protecting her from the other Scarecrows. Attley doesn't see it that way.
• One What's New? with Phil and Dixie mentions a tribe of amazons who kidnap men for sex. The kidnapped men fight like tigers against any attempts to free them.
• In one The Order of the Stick strip, Belkar is not happy when his teammates save him from being killed by Knight Templar Miko. He had it all worked out: Miko would kill him, wrongly, she'd lose her paladinhood, which Belkar would have found hilarious, and then Durkon would have raised Belkar because he's a member of the team. He's somewhat stimmied when V points out that Durkon can't cast raise dead because it requires diamonds.

Web Original

• Everyman HYBRID: The boys break "Damsel" out of the institution (with Jeff tackling a security guard in the process), and have no idea why she's angry.
  We figured you'd be happy!
  No, I'm - I would be, I'd be fucking stoked if they weren't releasing me today.
• The Lay of Paul Twister: When Paul Twister rescues a woman who a renegade mage was holding in a dungeon under horrifying conditions, she turns out to be a Celestial warrior who's quite annoyed at him, claiming she got herself captured on purpose so she could find out who the mage was working for.
• lonelygirl15 has done it a few times, as the heroes rescue girls whose blood is "trait positive" to keep them from being used in a mysterious ceremony which will result in their death. These girls tend to have no idea they have anything to worry about and are very hostile to their rescuers until they either escape or are convinced. This is subverted when one girl actually turns out to be trait negative, meaning the heroes' actions weren't even an unwilling rescue but a plain and simple kidnapping.
• In Red vs. Blue, Church^note , Epsilon-Church, from the memory unit, by Carolina.
  Epsilon: Thank you...!? You fucked everything up...! I was at peace - I had it figured out, it was over! Put me back!
• In RWBY, Jaune Arc, having been taking The Slow Path in meeting up with Team RWBY in the Ever After, decided to become The Caretaker for a race of paper creatures called Paper Pleasers. However, doing this has prevented them from dying and Ascending so they can take up a new purpose in the strange world. As Jaune proceeds to Go Mad from the Isolation, he keeps trying to protect the Paper Pleasers, thinking them Too Dumb to Live while they've become Determinators Driven to Suicide. However, when Neo attacks their village, they're able to use the distraction to finally end their lives and Ascend, which hits Jaune badly.

Western Animation

• A "peaceful resolution ruined" example occurs in the episode of Aladdin: The Series named "The Garden of Evil". The plant-like sorcerer Arbutus kidnaps princess Jasmine, but her kind and caring demeanor almost manages to alleviate his hatred to humans. Unfortunately, just before his oncoming reformation, Aladdin storms his castle.
• The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan episode "To Catch A Pitcher" has thugs kidnapping a star baseball pitcher, whom the Chan Clan rescues. But the guy isn't the star pitcher — he's a duplicate planted while the real star was in hiding, and the Clan's rescue of him may have spoiled the cover.
• In an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Bats pulls Save the Villain against Joker, who'd been betrayed by the washed-up Golden Age supervillain he'd brought out of retirement. Joker is quite displeased, and says that he'd ruined his best joke ever — if the Weeper had killed Joker, he'd have "claimed his destiny", going from washed up lame bad guy to the king of crime. It sort of echoes movie Joker not wanting to be saved because he'd have made Batman break his code — even a Lighter and Softer Joker cares more about his game than even his own life.
• On Care Bears & Cousins, Funshine Bear doesn't want Grumpy Bear to rescue him in "Share Air" like the other bears when Harmony Bear's song causes him to float and fly. He's having too much fun.
• In the Classic Disney Short "Mickey's Fire Brigade", Mickey, Donald and Goofy are firefighters trying to put out a burning building. Clarabelle Cow is inside taking a bath, unaware that there is a fire, so when the trio try to rescue her she mistakes them for peeping toms and hits them with her brush.
• An episode of Codename: Kids Next Door "Operation C.O.L.L.E.G.E." features Numbuh 1 infiltrating a college where they remove kids' brains. He is subsequently captured but it turns out that Professor XXXL made up the "removing brains" thing to lure Numbuh 1 (who doesn't get Brain Freeze) there so he could have a test subject for his perfect snow cone machine. Numbuh 1 has no objections. His team soon bust in to rescue him, getting him horribly hurt in the process, while he begs to be taken back.
  • He never got to tell the man it was the perfect snow cone formula he wanted to make, the minute he finished it, after the man had been working on it for months but had highly sensitive teeth and gums and got brain freeze every time he tried his creations.
• Danny Phantom had Danny and Tucker attempting to rescue Sam from the clutches of an evil ghost prince who intended to marry her. Neither of them realized that she was this close to saving her own ass until it was too late — the situation became much, much worse.
• In the Christmas Episode "A Very McStuffins Christmas" on Doc McStuffins, Stuffy doesn't want to be rescued when Lambie and Chilly come for him because he's getting a special plush toy treatment. The two soon join him.
• In the Family Guy episode Leggo-my-Meg-O, the episode spoofs the movie Taken, with Brian and Stewie going overseas to rescue a kidnapped Meg from a sex slave auction. When they do finally manage to find Meg and kill her captor, she is in horrific agony over his death. Not that Brian and Stewie listen, but moments before this the audience saw that, unlike the movie it's based on, the Sheikah who bought her did so to give his handsome son a wife, and the son is actually a really nice guy who asks Meg if she'll accept him and be happy with him. Just as they're about to kiss, Stewie and Brian barge in and shoot them dead.
• The Family That Dwelt Apart: A family is living happily on an isolated island until the authorities get the mistaken idea that one of them has appendicitis and needs help. The attempts by the military and civilians to "help" the isolated family leads to all but one of them getting killed.
• In the Futurama episode "The Inhuman Torch", Fry resists being rescued by Bender from the burning Planet Express building because he suspects him of having started the fire in the first place. Bender resorts to a Crisis Catch And Carry.
  Bender: I don't have time for this shazbot!
• In "Super Harry!" on Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs, Harry tries to save his sister, Sam, from an alien only to be told to go play somewhere else. He tries to blow away some leaves that his Nana raked up, only to upset her because she wanted them in the pile. He tries to carry groceries that his mother had well in hand only to end up tearing the bag and causing her to lose her car keys. He laments to his dinosaurs that he bets that other heroes don't have this problem.
• In Jimmy Two-Shoes, Heloise finally has Jimmy under the effects of a love sweater, and the two are about to kiss. Unfortunately, she also has Beezy under the effects of a fear sweater, who promptly "rescues" him.
• Johnny Bravo:
  • Subverted in the episode "Bikini Space Planet", where a bunch of beautiful alien girls abducted Johnny and he was rather enjoying it. Pops and Carl spent most of the episode developing a device to bring him back. All of their effort was for naught, since the girls ended up sending him back anyway but Pops and Carl were under the impression Johnny's return was their doing.
  • In another episode, Johnny is sent to a women's prison by mistake, and it's full of women so desperate for a guy that they're even willing to date him. When Bunny and Susie prove his innocence, he's literally dragged from the prison kicking and screaming.
  • In another episode, Johnny travels to the jungle, and gives a bouquet of flowers to a random woman. As it turns out, in her culture, that is considered a marriage proposal. Johnny decides he's ok with this. But as the wedding ceremony is about to take place Carl interferes, trying to rescue Johnny, which gets them both in a lot of trouble.
    Carl: Sorry, Johnny. How was I supposed to know you liked her?
    Johnny: A beautiful babe with a treehouse? What's not to like?
• Toward the end of the Kim Possible episode "Go Team Go", Shego has gotten hold of the villain's power-stealing MacGuffin and taken all her brothers' powers for herself. Then Drakken (thinking that Shego is in trouble) shows up with a giant battle robot, providing Kim with the distraction she needs to break the device and return everyone's powers to their proper owners.
• In a The Legend of Korra Book 4 episode, Ikki is annoyed at her siblings for "rescuing" her, because she had just reached the point where her captors were actively aiding her and freely giving her all the information the siblings needed to find Korra.
• The Legend of Tarzan episode "Tarzan and the British Invasion" has three old friends of Jane try and "rescue" her from the "wild man" (Tarzan) who persuaded her to stay in the jungle. The three young women quickly find themselves in over their heads.
• The Looney Tunes short Bear Feat, featuring Chuck Jones' Three Bears characters, ends with Pa — fed up with his idiotic wife and son — trying to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff. "I'm going to be free! Free at last!" he gleefully shouts as he plummets... but Junior shows up with a bucket of water and catches him at the last minute, earning a punch in the mouth for his efforts.
• The Looney Tunes Show: In "Itsy Bitsy Gopher", Bugs dashes into a house full of poison gas to rescue what he thinks is Gossamer's pet spider. However, it turns out not to be Gossamer's pet, but instead a deadly African sand spider which bites him on the hand.
• A variation in The Magic School Bus when Phoebe decides to go to the desert to save the animals from dehydration. Carlos tries to explain to her that the animals can survive just fine without human aid.
• Zigzagged in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Daring Don't". Daring Do allows herself to get captured so she can foil Ahuizotl's plan and only grudgingly accepts help from Rainbow Dash and her friends. Daring ends up appreciating the assistance and even writes Rainbow into her book about the adventure.
• In "Eye Spy" on PB&J Otter, Flick Duck is worried that everyone will think he's geeky if they see him wearing his new glasses. He has a fantasy sequence in which he is a superhero named "Glasses Boy" and Peanut, Baby Butter and Jelly refuse a rescue from him— they want to be rescued by a "real superhero".
• This is the basic premise of "Super Pocoyo" from Pocoyo in which Pocoyo tries to "rescue" several of his friends even though they're only just doing stuff like napping. The story finally ends though with Pato getting his hat stuck on his head and Super Pocoyo actually being able to do a real rescue.
• The SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Doing Time": Mrs. Puff gets arrested, but is happy because she doesn't have to deal with SpongeBob. Later SpongeBob and Patrick try to break her out, despite the fact that she really doesn't want to leave because that means she will lose her freedom from him.
• Star Wars Rebels: In "Through Imperial Eyes", this is The Mole's reaction to learning the rebels are trying to rescue him because they think his cover is in danger, partly because of how much danger everyone is in. At the end, he chooses to stay behind because he believes he's successfully covered his tracks, as he thinks he can do more good while staying with the Empire.
• In an episode of Teen Titans (2003), Cyborg is accidentally sent back in time and befriends some medieval villagers. He agrees to help them defend their town against invading monsters, but gets brought back to the present by Raven the moment the battle begins. As soon as he arrives home, the first thing he does is yell at the team to send him back. He feels better, though, once he sees a history book and learns that the villagers won the battle.
• X-Men: The Animated Series: Magneto gets introduced when he breaks into the detention center where Beast is being held in order to free him. Beast is upset because he was planning to argue for mutant rights in court during his trial, and the attack damaged his credibility. The judge of the case ended up using it as justification to deny him bail.

Real Life

• Henry Morton Stanley led not one, but two long and dangerous expeditions up the Congo River in which two-thirds of the expedition members died to rescue David Livingstone and Emin Pasha only to be told by them they were OK and not in need of any rescue. Indeed, in the latter case Emin did more to rescue Stanley than vice versa.
• During World War II, the 101^st Airborne was surrounded by the Germans at Bastogne and stuck in the bitter cold of Winter with ammo and food slowly dwindling. General Patton and his Army division came blazing through the area and reinforced the 101^st Airborne, in the eyes of the American Military community at large Patton had rescued the Airborne. After the ordeal a good deal of the 101^st Airborne refused to accept that General Patton "rescued" them, saying that they were never in any need of rescuing.
  • Despite the commonly considered Refuge in Audacity "Nuts" comment by the commanding American general. In reality, the surrounding division was actually outnumbered and was more under supplied than the unit they were besieging. The real Refuge in Audacity in that fight was by the surrounding division asking for surrender. So in a sense they were right, just not in the sense they thought at the time.
• There was an incident on the US Route 101 in Los Angeles where a criminal, being chased by the police, fell halfway down a hole in the middle of the street, used for road work, and couldn't get out. He singlehandedly held up traffic on one of the busiest highways in the United States for six hours, including the morning rush hour, because he absolutely refused to be allowed rescue by the police. He felt he needed time to think to find a way to escape without getting arrested, though he ultimately decided there was no way out and gave in.
• During Cortez's forays into the Aztec Empire, at one point, he rescued a group of people set to become the victims of a Human Sacrifice. However, they indignantly demanded that the sacrifice be carried out, as Aztec culture considered escaping from a sacrifice to be a great dishonor and an insult to the gods.

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