# Looking for action stories in which the heroes decide not to attempt a rescue of a captured comrade. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 21, 2013, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874 "2013-10-21T22:24:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/1 "2013-10-21T22:24:10Z")
It’s a fairly common occurrence in heroic fiction: one or more member of a band of brothers is taken prisoner by the bad guys, and his comrades immediately begin making plans for a rescue–sometimes by guile, sometimes by diplomacy, sometimes by brute force. I’m interested in examples where the heroes consciously decide NOT to do that, and stick with the decision. It can be because they know the villains will immediately execute any captives; it can be because they’ve got bigger fish to fry; it can be because everybody hates the captive anyway. Cases in which the heroes don’t know of the victims’ plight don’t count, by the way. I’m mostluy interested in literary examples but if y’all want to talk about movies, tv shows, theatre, or comic books – well, I am not the boss of you. Oh, and nobody say “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” I have sworn never to type the name Wesley Wyndham-Pryce ever again. Thoughts, anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Enginerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bcef8e/32.png) [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/2 "2013-10-21T22:30:02Z")
In the movie Last of the Mohicans, Nathaniel kills the English officer being tortured by the Huron rather than trying to rescue him. I have no idea if that was in Cooper’s original book, but it might be one of the literary examples you’re looking for. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/3 "2013-10-21T22:31:34Z")
In Die Hard, Ellis tries to convince John McClaine that the terrorists will kill him if he doesn’t surrender the detonators. Does that count? ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/4 "2013-10-21T22:33:59Z")
In Aliens, several people got captured but were not rescued. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/5 "2013-10-21T22:34:04Z")
> [@](#): > > I have no idea if that was in Cooper’s original book, It was. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/6 "2013-10-21T22:35:14Z")
[The Guns of Navarone.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054953/) They leave one of their party behind, along with some weapons, so that he can be of some help. Otherwise, he would just slow them down due to his injury. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/7 "2013-10-21T22:40:10Z")
Mister miracle. In every story i know of, if he gets captured, all his allies tell each other to wait until he frees himself. In brave heart, i think Wallace decided not to rescue his wife because he never expected her to be executed. Doctor strange searched for clea for years but eventually gave it up as hopeless. During the civil war storyline, Matt Murdoch asked his Allies not to rescue him from prison. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/8 "2013-10-21T22:52:36Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > [The Guns of Navarone.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054953/) > > They leave one of their party behind, along with some weapons, so that he can be of some help. Otherwise, he would just slow them down due to his injury. They leave Franklin behind injured knowing he might be tortured. He was. But he was given misinformation so it helped the plan. Mallory could be cold. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/9 "2013-10-22T03:11:35Z")
James Bond is captured by the North Koreans at the start of _Die Another Day_, and M decides it’s easier and safer just to leave him there. M leaving captured agents to their fate was also a key plot point of _Skyfall_. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/10 "2013-10-22T03:29:34Z")
In the second season of _Heroes_, one of the main characters finds himself a few years in the future, in an America ravaged by a plague. While there, his girlfriend gets taken away by government agents enforcing a quarantine. The protagonist then finds his way back to the present, and prevents the plague from happening. At no point does he appear to even consider trying to rescue her. Hell, once she’s hauled away, I don’t think he ever mentions her name again. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/11 "2013-10-22T03:43:38Z")
Poul Anderson does this a few times in the (excellent) “David Falkayn” stories. One of the team will get captured, and will simply go along with the people who’ve taken him, not making a foolish desperate bid for freedom. He’s wise enough to know that his teammates will know what he is going to do. Instead of trying to rescue him, they’ll wait and lurk and watch for a better opportunity. Of course, in other stories, he exactly reverses this: the captive does make a desperate bid for freedom, knowing that his teammates would never leave him behind and that they are, even now, blasting their way through to free him… Excellent stories, but…ah…sometimes a tad contradictory. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/12 "2013-10-22T04:52:46Z")
In the 4th novel of David Weber’s _Safehold_ series, _How Firm A Foundation_, the heroes do not rescue a group of soldiers from torture and death at the hands of their enemies even tho it is within their power to do so because they cannot tip their hand to certain advantages they have lest they risk losing the entire war. The characters discuss Winston Churchill’s reasoning about a similar situation during WW2 where he couldn’t risk alerting the population about a certain bombing that the Germans were going to undertake lest he expose the fact that they had cracked the German’s codes. He knew he was condemning people to death but he couldn’t risk the entire war effort to save them. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/13 "2013-10-22T05:08:29Z")
Hogans heroes. I don’t beleive anyone from the outside even tried to rescue them. ---
**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/14 "2013-10-22T05:11:12Z")
well, in Buffy th ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/15 "2013-10-22T05:26:35Z")
If games count, in the backstory of _Fallout: New Vegas_ the sniper Boone’s pregnant wife was kidnapped by the Legion as a slave. Upon finding her surrounded by Legion troops and being sold at auction he shot and killed her since he couldn’t save her. In that game in general the NCR has a policy of sniping crucified NCR prisoners from long range rather than trying to save them, since the Legion tends to surround such prisoners with traps. I’m not sure if it counts, but in one of the Discworld novels the rest of the Night Watch didn’t bother trying to rescue Angua when some robbers took her hostage and dragged her off. Of course, this was because she’s a werewolf and the _robbers_ were the ones who needed rescuing…“Don’t play with your food!” In a similar vein (heh), in one of Tanya Huff’s Blood books a character realizes his van is being stolen with with his sleeping girlfriend in back…he stops running after it and starts laughing because it’s his sleeping _vampire_ girlfriend, right before sunset. I’m sure there’s a fair number of stories where something like that happens; “They took him prisoner? Poor bastards…” ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/16 "2013-10-22T06:11:03Z")
In the first Indiana Jones movie, Miriam falls into the Germans’ hands and he makes his way into the tent where she is held, bound and gagged. He takes her gag off, talks briefly with her, then regags her and leaves her there because he realizes that if she goes missing the Nazis will be all over the place searching for her, making it virtually impossible for him to find the Well of Souls. Cold, Doctor Jones! ---
**Author:** ![glaeken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@glaeken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glaeken)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/17 "2013-10-22T10:20:06Z")
In Goodbye to all that by Robert Graves set during ww1 a wounded man is stuck in no man’s land screaming and Graves as the officer orders that no one tries to rescue him. A solider actually ignores him and does go out and rescues the wounded man anyway. Of course it’s not actually fiction. There are actually numerous examples in the book of Graves not doing what we would think of as the heroic thing but that probably reflect what people actually would do in combat situations rather than movie type heroics. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/18 "2013-10-22T10:37:41Z")
In the movie _Predators_, the, er, group of protagonists loses one of their party, only to find him huddled in the middle of a clearing, moaning for help. They _very_ quickly deduce that it’s a trap…and that there’s nothing to do but leave him. …one of them mercy-kills the “bait,” as they leave. …and a few seconds later, the man “calls for help” again. It was a recording; he was already dead. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/19 "2013-10-22T11:24:12Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > Hogans heroes. I don’t beleive anyone from the outside even tried to rescue them. But why would they? Surely Klink, Schultz and the rest of the Germans were the actual prisoners. ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2013, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874/20 "2013-10-22T11:30:16Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > In the first Indiana Jones movie, Miriam falls into the Germans’ hands and he makes his way into the tent where she is held, bound and gagged. He takes her gag off, talks briefly with her, then regags her and leaves her there because he realizes that if she goes missing the Nazis will be all over the place searching for her, making it virtually impossible for him to find the Well of Souls. Cold, Doctor Jones! It’s Marion. Indy left her there because if he hadn’t they would have been found rather quickly and both would have been killed. He was going to come back for her, I don’t really think that counts as leaving her behind. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-action-stories-in-which-the-heroes-decide-not-to-attempt-a-rescue-of-a-captured-comrade/671874.md?page=2)