Deathtrap (plot device)

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A deathtrap is a literary and dramatic plot device in which a villain, who has captured the hero or another sympathetic character, attempts to use an elaborate and usually sadistic method of murdering him/her.

It is often used as a means to create dramatic tension in the story and to have the villain reveal important information to the hero, confident that the hero will shortly not be able to use it. It may also be a means to show the hero's resourcefulness in escaping, or the writer's ingenuity at devising a last-minute rescue or deus ex machina.

This plot device is generally believed to have been popularized by movie serials, though it is best known for its use in the James Bond film series and superhero stories, and has precedents in the 19th century theatrical melodramas from which the cliché of the moustache-twirling villain leaving the heroine tied to the railroad tracks is derived.

It is a common criticism that it is unbelievable in story plots to have villains try to kill the heroes in such elaborate ways when they could use simple methods like shooting them. Through the decades, comic book writers have responded to these complaints by devising ways in which the deathtraps have served other purposes. For instance, one Legion of Super-Heroes story by Jim Shooter had a team of Legionnaires put into a variety of deathtraps whose real purpose was to have them use so much energy to successfully escape so the villains can harness it to their own benefit. Other stories have had villains use deathtraps as a means of testing the heroes or to distract them while the villain attends to other matters. Other supervillains use it for personal reasons like The Riddler, who has an uncontrollable compulsion to create intellectual challenges for his enemies, and The Joker, who simply enjoys the challenge.

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Famous examples of deathtraps

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
  • Raiders of the Lost Ark: Sealing Indiana Jones and Marion in the Well of Souls
    • Escape method: Seeing a possible tunnel entrance, Jones climbed a statue and toppled it towards the wall to create an entrance to a passageway that led to the outside.
  • Goldfinger: James Bond is shackled spreadeagled to a table and a circular saw (a laser in the film) is approaching to cut him in half. Unlike many deathtrap scenarios, Bond is not left alone or unguarded, nor does he use a device or outside help to escape.
Bond: "Do you expect me to talk?"
Goldfinger: "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!"
    • Escape method: Bond persuades Goldfinger that his replacement might know about his plans and Goldfinger cannot take the chance of another spy coming in to interfere.
  • Live and Let Die: Doctor Kanaga and a minion tie James Bond and Solitare to a platform to be lowered into a shark infested pool to be eaten alive.
    • Escape method: When the villians' backs are turned, Bond activates his watch's rotary saw function to cut through his restraints to free himself and attack Kanaga.
  • The 1960s live action television series Batman usually had two-part episodes which have a cliffhanger involving bizarre deathtraps.
    • Example: The Joker traps the Dynamic Duo without their utility belts in the bottom of an industrial smokestack and begins to gradually fill it with a deadly heavier than air gas.
      • Escape method: The pair lock elbows and brace their backs against each other to walk up the smokestack to the top opening and slide down a support cable safely to the ground.
  • The Incredible Hulk often has David Banner finding himself in elaborate deathtraps where his only escape is they produce enough emotional stress to trigger his transformation in the Hulk who uses his superhuman strength and endurance to break free and attack his assailants.
  • The Perils of Penelope Pitstop always involved improbable deathtraps, usually set by the Hooded Claw.
  • X-Men #17-18 - Magneto seizes the X-Men and renders all of them unconscious. He then decides to put them inside a steel gondola lifted by a hot-air balloon, so that it rises extremely high in the sky, into the upper atmosphere until they suffocate.
    • Escape method: Jean Grey uses her telekinesis to stop the balloon from rising, Cyclops uses his optic blasts to pierce it so that it deflates slowly and they fall back on Earth, with Jean controlling the descent.
  • Iron Man #118 - Anthony Stark is struck unconscious and thrown out of the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier, several thousand feet up.
    • Escape method: Regaining consciousness and his composure, Stark quickly dons his power armor and barely dons the complete suit to engage the flight function before he hits the ground.
  • Fantastic Four #278-279 - The adopted son of Doctor Doom launches the Baxter Building into outer space and then explodes it with the Four and an associate inside.
    • Escape method: The Invisible Woman erects a force field bubble to protect the occupants from the explosion and they play dead when a probe examines the wreckage. Once alone, the superhero team leaves orbit by Mister Fantastic using his stretching power to shape the force field into an aerodynamic form. Once achieved, he carefully created an air leak to serve as propulsion to make the bubble start re-entry. To survive the resulting heat generation, The Human Torch temporarily absorbs the heat energy to keep the temperature in the bubble at a livable level until it has descended into the lower atmosphere. Once achieved, the bubble is steered toward Latveria and to one of Doctor Doom's castles with She-Hulk serving as a battering ram to gain entry on impact.
  • Dick Tracy was the first comic strip to use deathtraps extensively. The most famous was devised by Mrs. Pruneface. Her creation was that of Tracy lying chained to an apartment floor underneath a refrigerator supported by two ice cakes which had a sharpened pole aimed at the detective's heart. The heat was turned up and as the ice cakes melted, the pole would descend until it impaled Tracy.
    • Escape Method: Tracy noticed that the floor was on a slight incline and hit upon the idea of repeatedly striking the floor with his pelvis, thus caused the fridge to be slowly shifted to one side until the pole missed him. Meanwhile, Pat and his police comrades eventually found Tracy and freed him.
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The Villain Speech

A simpler variation on the deathtrap is the villain speech, also known as monologuing (a term popularized by the film The Incredibles). The villain, after having captured the hero or another victim, gives a long speech taunting and sneering at his victim, pontificating on how said victim will soon die, and reminiscing over how he tried for so long to get his kill and is now about to reap the reward. Villains may also give away details of their evil plots, on the rationale that the victim will die immediately. This speech, given when the villain could have just killed the victim in a matter of seconds, is invariably used to give another character time to come in and save the victim, or for the victim to escape.

Even in relatively realistic stories, villains will still take a moment to say something pithy before finishing off the victim.

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Spoofs

The concept of the deathtrap/monologue is featured in many satires. For instance, it was spoofed heavily in the Austin Powers movies, including a replication of James Bond's Shark Infested Water deathtrap (which Dr. Evil calls "the unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism"), which is escaped by swinging on a grapple of dental floss. As the intended sharks with laserbeams attached to their heads were unavailable due to the complexities of international law regarding endangered species (much to Dr. Evil's disappointment), ill-tempered mutant seabass are employed instead. As part of the spoof, Scott Evil, Dr. Evil's son, insists that the deathtrap is pointless and a more effective means of killing the heroes would be simply to use a pistol, which he has nearby.

James Bond movies have included so many deathtrap/monologue scenes that a card game entitled Before I Kill You, Mr. Bond was developed. Players, to score points, must read "taunt" cards that mimic many of the improbable situations Bond was found in.

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External links

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