About: Carrying the Antidote   Sponge Permalink

An Entity of Type : owl:Thing, within Data Space : 134.155.108.49:8890 associated with source dataset(s)

A tendency for villains to carry a vial of the antidote to the poison he or she just gave the hero under their shirt for absolutely no reason whatsoever. It can go down in several ways. One commonly used method is for the hero to spend the episode trying to scrounge up the ingredients to the cure from scratch, quickening the drug in the process, only to fail and be informed by the villain that they had it all along. Is also regularly executed during a trade off, with the villain receiving what they want but Withholding the Cure. One has to wonder why they felt the need to bring the real deal if they were planning on cheating out the hero anyway. Another more humorous subversion is for the villain to reveal the vial and have it snatched from or knocked out of their hand before they can even

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  • Carrying the Antidote
rdfs:comment
  • A tendency for villains to carry a vial of the antidote to the poison he or she just gave the hero under their shirt for absolutely no reason whatsoever. It can go down in several ways. One commonly used method is for the hero to spend the episode trying to scrounge up the ingredients to the cure from scratch, quickening the drug in the process, only to fail and be informed by the villain that they had it all along. Is also regularly executed during a trade off, with the villain receiving what they want but Withholding the Cure. One has to wonder why they felt the need to bring the real deal if they were planning on cheating out the hero anyway. Another more humorous subversion is for the villain to reveal the vial and have it snatched from or knocked out of their hand before they can even
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dbkwik:all-the-tro...iPageUsesTemplate
dbkwik:allthetrope...iPageUsesTemplate
abstract
  • A tendency for villains to carry a vial of the antidote to the poison he or she just gave the hero under their shirt for absolutely no reason whatsoever. It can go down in several ways. One commonly used method is for the hero to spend the episode trying to scrounge up the ingredients to the cure from scratch, quickening the drug in the process, only to fail and be informed by the villain that they had it all along. Is also regularly executed during a trade off, with the villain receiving what they want but Withholding the Cure. One has to wonder why they felt the need to bring the real deal if they were planning on cheating out the hero anyway. Another more humorous subversion is for the villain to reveal the vial and have it snatched from or knocked out of their hand before they can even get the gloating out. Some may try to Hand Wave it by giving the villain a sadistic thought process, demonstrating that they enjoy recounting the agonizing death awaiting the hero only to dangle the one thing that could save the hero's life right in front of their face. Nonetheless, they pretty much do it so that the hero or his companions can steal it and use it Just in Time. It makes a bit more sense when the villain is using the poison as a form of blackmail, fully intending to hand over the antidote as soon as the hero has given him what he wants in exchange. (This doesn't explain, though, why the villain would need to carry or hand over an actual antidote...) There's also another possible Hand Wave, one that can be a reasonable justification in the right conditions. Accidents happen, and if you're carrying poison around with you accidents can be fatal. Someone might get clever and try a Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo. A case of friendly fire might lead you to inadvertently hitting the wrong person with your poisoned weapon. People who are careless with weapons might even manage to injure themselves with their own poison. In any of those situations, you might really need to have the antidote on hand; the villain might just want to be prepared in case he or she is accidentally poisoned, well aware of the possibility of Death by Irony. The concept of an instant antidote is itself a form of Applied Phlebotinum. In real life, even if a toxin does have an effective antidote its action will rarely be as fast as depicted in Hollywood. For example, atropine blocks and counteracts the symptoms of nerve agent poisoning, but it does not actually remove the toxin from the body or heal damaged tissue. Even with an antidote, a poisoned patient may require extensive hospital care. Poisons in Hollywood also typically have a time limit during which the victim will feel no symptoms until the time limit expires, at which point they suffer a Critical Existence Failure. See also To the Pain, Contrived Coincidence, and Fridge Logic. Examples of Carrying the Antidote include:
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