Basic Trope: Both choices given have negative consequences.
- Straight: Draco kidnaps Alice and Carol, and gives their love interest Bob a choice of saving one, while he kills the other.
- Exaggerated:
- Draco is holding everyone Bob holds dear at ransom, as well as the entire world. Bob can only save one...and as soon as he does choose, Draco destroys both and laughs in his face.
- Morton's Fork: Both actions have consequences, but are entirely negative.
- Downplayed: Draco kidnaps Alice and Carol, and gives their love interest Bob a choice of saving one, while he leaves the other alone, in Detroit.
- Justified:
- Draco wants to hit Bob where it REALLY hurts.
- Draco absolutely despises Carol and wants an excuse to kill her, and he's banking on the fact that Bob would never let Alice die.
- Inverted:
- Draco gave Bob pizza and ice cream, both his favorite food. Bob was given a choice to eat one of them first.
- Draco torments Bob by preventing him from choosing anything, instead deciding for him.
- Subverted:
- Draco purports to have captured Alice and Carol. Bob gets there only to find that they have freed themselves.
- Bob is a member of a Heroic Team, while he can't save both ladies in time, his friends can save one while he saves the other.
- Double Subverted:
- ...only to be kidnapped again.
- Draco does try to set up a Sadistic Choice ploy again but this time he makes contingency plans to make sure that nobody else can interfere.
- Parodied:
- Draco got hold of a fire-truck toy and a spinning top, and gave their owner Bob a choice of "saving" one, while he puts the other in a toy box.Draco: Now, Bob, you must make a decision. Which one of these ladies will you save?
Bob: Actually, I don't have to do a thing at all.
Draco: Is that true? You don't wish to save them at all?
Bob: Oh no, I do, but I lead a Hero Team, remember? The members of my squad are freeing them from their death traps even as we speak.
Draco views his live surveillance feed, which confirms it.
Draco: Oh... hm, this is awkward. - Draco announces to Bob that he has kidnapped his love interests Alice and Carol and Bob is horrified... that Alice & Carol are furious at him for finding out that he has been cheating on her with the other. Draco was initially surprised by this reaction but then pretends that this was his plan all along.Bob: Hey, wait a minute! These two aren't Alice & Carol! They are your minions... in drag!
Draco: [sighs] This is what I get for not having any women in my payroll.
- Draco got hold of a fire-truck toy and a spinning top, and gave their owner Bob a choice of "saving" one, while he puts the other in a toy box.
- Zig Zagged: Draco kidnaps Alice and Carol, but it turns out Bob doesn't really much care for either of them, but since he's a victim of Chronic Hero Syndrome, he still finds it necessary to save them anyway, only to have them save themselves and hold both Bob and Draco prisoner instead.
- Averted: Bob does not have to make a choice of such magnitude.
- Enforced: "We have to establish what Bob values the most."
- Lampshaded: "Dammit, dammit, dammit. I should've known you'd kidnap them, of all people! And you say you'll kill the other?"
- Invoked: Knowing about Bob's 2-love interests, Draco kidnaps Alice and Carol first.
- Exploited:
- This leads Bob into a Heroic BSoD, making his defeat easier.
- Or the twist is Alice & Carol were never captured and the ladies that Bob must rescue were actually Draco's assassins in disguise so when Bob saves one of them it would give the assassin a chance to go for the surprise kill.
- Defied:
- Bob broke off his relationships to prevent them from getting into danger.
- When given two options, Bob always goes for option C: punch the supervillain in the face.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: "I've captured your two lady friends. In front of you are two "release" buttons. You know the deal."
- Played For Laughs: While trying to persuade Bob to free one of them, Alice and Carol get into an argument, which eventually devolves into a series of No, You accusations. It becomes clear that if they weren't in separate cages, they'd be literally at each other's throats.
- Played For Drama:
- The device holding them captive is rigged so that the second one is freed, the other will die a horrible death, in full view of Bob and whichever one he rescues. After the choice is made, he and his rescuee are Forced to Watch the unfortunate woman die in a gratuitously horrendous fashion, along with all that would normally come with such a demise. Bob suffers a Heroic BSoD afterwards.
- Or Draco has rigged the devices in which both ladies die regardless of who Bob tries to save, causing Bob to suffer emotionally... and then he brutally kills Draco for this deception.
Hahaha, you're caught in a Sadistic Choice. Either stay here and never see the main page again, go back to main while abandoning this one, or resort to tabbed browsing for the rest of your life, hahaha.
