Celia Gozen: I can't get at the snakes holding the rest of what’s left of our division hostage, and I don’t think I can stop them, or you, if an attack comes. That’s why [I yield].
Arthur Drakon: You’ve been bluffing this whole time? Seriously?
Gozen: Yes, honored CEO.
Drakon: Executive, I don’t know what you want to do when this is all over, but if you’re looking for a job and pass the security screening, I would really like to have an officer of your caliber.
Arthur Drakon: You’ve been bluffing this whole time? Seriously?
Gozen: Yes, honored CEO.
Drakon: Executive, I don’t know what you want to do when this is all over, but if you’re looking for a job and pass the security screening, I would really like to have an officer of your caliber.
— The Lost Stars: Imperfect Sword
What does one do with a defeated opponent? Well, one could revel in one's victory, exult in their misery, and hear the lamentation of their women.
Or, one could recruit them. A Worthy Opponent often has useful abilities; otherwise they probably wouldn't have been Worthy. It's also often good politics to try to heal the breach between your factions once the conflict is over.
In less idealistic works, doing so can backfire: the foe may not have really given up and might try to overthrow the winner from within.
This is a staple of Mons Series, which stereotypically involve defeating Mons so the player can add them to their collection.
Closely related to Defeat Means Friendship, where a winning hero gains their defeated foe's respect and friendship, just not necessarily their allegiance; and Boxed Crook, which may involve the same investigator who previously caught the crook bringing them aboard as an Expert Consultant. Compare to Hire the Critic, where a fiction creator brings aboard somebody who criticized their earlier work to help them do better with future works. Also compare Captive Enemy as Ally, when prisoners work with their captors for a variety of reasons. Can overlap with Actually Pretty Impressive or A Success, by Comparison if the winner was impressed with the loser's effort. Contrast Defeat Means Menial Labor, where a defeated villain loses their job and gets stuck with a low-level one.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Berserk: Griffith recruits Guts into his Band of the Hawk after defeating him in a one-on-one Sword Fight. When Guts wants out of the Hawks a good few years later, he has to fight Griffith again, and this time defeats him with one stroke.
- Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: In "DI: Beware the Left Eye – POKER FACE", Saito tells his backstory over a poker game. According to him, he was recruited by Motoko after she outwitted him on the battlefield—a Sniper Duel where she shot his eye out before he could shoot her. The other government agents on the table doubt his story, as the way he told it just so happened to match up with a scene from an old war movie. Saito walks away from the table before revealing he had a winning hand, which left the Tachikomas to wonder if he really was telling the truth.
Motoko: From now on, you work for me, you son of a bitch!
- Kaguya-sama: Love Is War: Shirogane recruits Iino to be the student council's new auditor after defeating her during his reelection. It's also mentioned near the end of the series that the rival candidates are one of the three main sources that newly elected presidents typically pull from for their councils (with the other two being their friends and former council members).
- One Piece:
- The Davy Back Fights, a game for pirates, has a special rule: the losing pirate crew in each round has to give up a member of the winning pirate crew's choosing. This is how the Foxy Pirates gained over 500 members, and how Rocks D. Xebec made his Badass Crew.
- Kaido has a habit of defeating his opponent and trying to recruit them by breaking their spirits.
Comic Books
- Star Wars Legends: Star Wars Empire: Palpatine spares the leader of a coup plot and is ready to promote him due to how impressive it was…until another plotter reveals that the actual mastermind is already dead and this guy is Stealing the Credit, earning him a quick execution.
Fan Works
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: When Keepers fight, sometimes the loser's army will eventually be recruited into the victor's army. But unless the victor wants some specific recruit, total extermination is more often seen, especially if the losing army is of mindless, like animated skeletons, or animals, like spiders.
- Riding a Sunset: After saving Bumblebee and Charlie from angry street racers, Jazz tells the two the story of how he used to be a street racer on Cybertron. He was pursued for a long time by a police bot (all but stated to be Prowl). Jazz managed to evade him for a while but was eventually caught in one of Prowl's traps. Rather than turn him in, Prowl was impressed by Jazz's ability to outwit the law and recruited him into the Autobots.
Films — Animation
- The Prince of Egypt: Towards the end of the "Playing with the Big Boys" number, after supposedly "beating" Moses in a contest of magic, Hotep and Huy offer to take him on as an acolyte, just to show there's no hard feelings.
Films — Live-Action
- Catch Me If You Can: In the filmed version of Frank Abagnale, Jr.'s memoir of the same name, and both of which are very loosely based on actual events, FBI Agent Carl Hanratty chases the young con artist for years before finally catching him red-handed in a forged check-making scheme. Hanratty later hires Frank to help catch other check forgers as part of the agency's Financial Crimes Unit.
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier: The film reveals that, after the end of World War II, Dr. Arnim Zola, formerly Chief Scientist for the Red Skull and HYDRA in Captain America: The First Avenger, was recruited by SHIELD and became an important contributor to SHIELD's advanced technology. Unfortunately, he took the opportunity to rebuild HYDRA as a fifth column within SHIELD.
- King of New York: Frank offers both some muggers who find themselves outgunned by him and the bodyguards of a man he got the drop on and killed jobs working as his new Mooks, and several accept the offer.
Literature
- 1632: 1634: The Galileo Affair: After Mazzare gets Galileo acquitted, he requests that Galileo’s accuser be given a prestigious position at the new university in Jena to help salvage his reputation.
- Books of Samuel: In 2 Samuel 19
, after Absalom's rebellion was quashed, David decided to replace Joab, the commander of David's armies. He appointed Amasa, who had been commander of Absalom's armies, as commander of his own. Unfortunately, the old head of David's army, Joab, was unwilling to accept his removal from that position, and he killed Amasa.
- Encyclopedia Brown: In her first appearance, Sally Kimball challenges Encyclopedia to a battle of the brains to decide which one of them is smarter. While Encyclopedia wins, he hires her to work at his detective agency, both as a co-investigator and a bodyguard.
- Fire & Blood:
- Aegon the Conqueror had a fondness for this. Any of his enemies who survived the initial dragon onslaught and surrendered were allowed to live.
- Tyland Lannister sided with the Green branch of the Tygaryen family during the Dance of the Dragons, who sort of won, only for their king to die within a few days of claiming the throne. Aegon III, of the opposing side, got Tyland as part of his Small Council. Despite both having extremely good reason to dislike one another, they actually got along.
- Hit The Saddle: The book ends with Thad convincing a pair of humiliated and Trigger-Happy rowdies he bested to come work at his ranch rather than pick a fight.
- Honor Harrington: After losing his ship in The Honor of the Queen, Havenite captain Alfredo Yu knows he can't go home because he'd be shot for losing his ship. So he asks for asylum on Grayson and gets it. Some time after that, he swears allegiance to Grayson and joins the Grayson Space Navy, eventually rising to be Commander of the Protector's Own Squadron, one of the highest-ranking officers in the GSN.
- Judge Dee defeats Ma Joong and Chiao Tai in a sword duel when they try to rob him and lets them off by telling arriving authorities they were members of his tribunal sparring with him. They offer to make that lie real if he will take them in, and he does.
- Oathbringer: A flashback shows that Dalinar Kholin recruited Teleb, one of his most reliable military commanders, back in his Blood Knight days when Teleb nearly managed to kill him in battle as an archer from an enemy army. Impressed, Dalinar offered to spare Teleb's town if he switched sides, and eventually won the man's sincere loyalty.
- Please Don't Tell My Parents I've Got Henchmen: After her embarrassingly easy defeats of. Charlie (for the second time) and Cassie during their separate acts of mischief at the football game, Penny helps them up and sincerely asks Cassie what she wants to do going forward before him them join her clique at school. She initially considers Charlie too dumb to warrant the same courtesy but eventually reconsiders.
- Reign of the Seven Spellblades: After Tim Linton's Dark Horse Victory in the election for Student Council President in volume 10, volume 12 reveals he appointed both of his opponents, Vera Miligan and Percival Whalley, plus Whalley's supporter Richard Andrews, to the student council.
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Zig-zagged. After Lü Bu's defeat at the battle of Xiapi, Lü Bu and one of his generals, Zhang Liao, were brought before Cao Cao. Lü Bu attempted to offer his fealty to Cao Cao, which drew the ire of his subordinate for cowardice, but Cao Cao instead had Lü Bu dragged away to be hanged and chose to spare Zhang Liao. Having valued his loyalty and righteousness, Cao Cao personally released Zhang Liao from his restraints and gave Zhang his coat and a seat — the sincerity of which moved him, and he swore his allegiance to Cao Cao.
- Serge Storms has a few negative examples of the trope.
- In Atomic Lobster, Serge and Addled Addict stripper Rachael get into a fight over some drug money and he ends up on top of the fight, but lets her go and gives her part of the money in exchange for her joining his and Coleman's motley crew. He is mostly just using her for sex, though, and she eventually tries to kill him after learning he killed her sister in an earlier book.
- In Nuclear Jellyfish, much of the Eel's gang of hotel robbers is made up of survivors of a previous, more talented and less bloodthirsty crew whose territory he decisively moved in on, although their recruitment is described as them being "shanghaied."
- A Song of Ice and Fire: Twyin Lannister has this as one of his methods of operation. Though this is provided he is feeling merciful, and doesn't decide to utterly obliterate the loser and their entire family as an example to anyone who feels like defying him.
Live-Action TV
- The Collector: Morgan, guest character Sophia, and implicitly other Collectors made a Deal with the Devil that resulted in them selling their souls for Jackass Genie deals that failed to buy their loved ones as much time as they had envisioned. Both unsuccessfully resisted or fought back when the Devil came for them. He was too powerful for them to beat but was amused/impressed enough to let them stay out of Hell if they did his bidding on earth, a situation both come to loathe over time.
- Criminal Minds: How Garcia was hired at the FBI. She was on one of the FBI's lists of extremely talented yet dangerous hackers in the world. When she was caught, Hotch gave her a choice between prison time and working as the BAU's technical analyst.
- Madam Secretary: Subverted in the reelection arc; when the election goes to the House of Representatives after no candidate secures a majority in the electoral college, President Dalton attempts to buy off third-place finisher Senator Fred Reynolds by offering him a job as Secretary of Education in exchange for Reynolds getting his supporters in the House to vote for him. Reynolds declines the offer, saying he's "taking this over the finish line."
- The West Wing: In the final season, after Matt Santos wins the presidential election, he offers the losing candidate, Arnold Vinnick, the position of Secretary of State.
- White Collar: Downplayed and invoked. After chasing him down for years, FBI agent Peter Burke caught con artist Neal Cafferty four years prior to the start of the series. When Burke catches him a second time following his escape from prison in the pilot, Neal convinces Peter to change his sentence from another four years in jail to a full-time consultation job with the FBI to catch other white collar criminals. Peter reluctantly agrees to be his handler.
Tabletop Games
- BattleTech: This is a custom among the Clans, taking defeated but respected warriors into the victor's clan as Bondsmen.
- Chess: One Variant Chess derivative, Bughouse Chess, has one player of a team capture pieces, and their partner can recruit and place those captured pieces.
- Shōgi is a chess-like game where captured pieces get recruited and may be placed on almost any free space on the board.
- Warhammer Fantasy: This is how orc and most Chaos warbands function: they or their leaders fight, the loser's forces join the winner's, and the loser's head joins the winner's collection.
- Warhammer 40,000:
- Ork and Chaos armies function much like their Fantasy counterparts, though some who work as mercenaries agree to work under the more powerful leader without the need for fighting.
- Tyranids are a Hive Mind and theoretically are all on the same side. To justify matches between each other, the Hive Mind actually does have swarms fight each other to see which one has the more useful adaptations, and the loser's biomass gets absorbed by the winner.
Theatre
- Hamilton: Discussed but subverted. At the end of "The Election of 1800", when loser Aaron Burr goes to winner Thomas Jefferson expecting he'll be made Jefferson's vice president just as Jefferson was Vice President for John Adams, Jefferson refuses to do so. (This is Artistic License – History: the US Constitution at the time dictated that the runner-up for POTUS would become VP (Article II, Section 1, Clause 3), but the result under Adams was two political opponents who agreed on next to nothing having to become coworkers. This, plus a kerfuffle during the 1800 electionnote , led to the passage of the 12th Amendment in 1804 as an Obvious Rule Patch, introducing the current system where the POTUS and VP are elected by the electoral college on separate ballots; Burr consequently was replaced with George Clinton for Jefferson's second term.)
Burr: I look forward to our partnership.
Jefferson: Our partnership?
Burr: As your vice president!
Jefferson: Ha ha ha -- Yeah, right! You hear this guy? Man openly campaigns against me, talking 'bout "I look forward to our partnership!"
Madison: It is crazy that the guy who comes in the second gets to be Vice President.
Jefferson: Ooh! Y'know what, we can change that! Y'know why?
Madison: Why?
Jefferson: 'Cause I'm the president.
Video Games
- Blitz: The League: In the second game:
- When the Player Created Team is promoted to Division 2, Kid Franchise is given the opportunity to sign any one of the Captains for any of the Division 3 teams that didn't get promoted. When they are promoted to Division 1, the team signs linebacker Karl Tirpitz of the Supermax team that Franchise beats during his stint in prison.
- When the Los Angeles Riot are promoted to Division 1, the Commissioner has the team sign the Captains for all the other Division 2 and 3 teams to guarantee a championship.
- Fire Emblem:
- Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War: In order to recruit Ayra, who is generally considered one of the best units in the game, the player has to lure her away from the Genoa Castle she is guarding in mission 1 without killing her, then quickly seize the castle. Doing so turns her non-hostile, at which point she can be talked to and recruited. Story-wise, this is because Ayra's brother Shannan is held hostage inside the castle, and Sigurd immediately releases him, prompting Ayra to defect to his army.
- Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance: Shinon starts out as a playable character, but leaves the Greil Mercenaries once they accept Ike — whom he hates — as their new leader. (His reasoning is that Ike is a recipient of nepotism who got the position even though he wasn't the most experienced soldier in the company.) Some time later, they meet as enemies on the battlefield, and note if Shinon is defeated by Ike, he agrees to join the Greil Mercenaries for good.
- Kirby Super Star: Kirby will swallow an enemy and gain a Copy Ability from it, and if he wants a helper, a helper will appear based on the enemy he originally swallowed.
- The Last Remnant: Jager can be recruited once you have access to the Ring of the Labyrinth guild, which is after you encountered him as a boss. He's less powerful in your party.
- Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance: The Jetstream DLC shows the circumstances that led to Jetstream Sam joining Desperado LLC: He originally attacked their HQ in an attempt to dismantle them, only to end up getting dismembered by their backer Senator Armstrong, who treats Sam's one-man assault as an elaborate job interview. Having been broken in both body and spirit, Sam agrees, at least until someone else succeeds where he failed.
Senator Armstrong: The job's yours. Welcome aboard.
- Okage: Shadow King: The final three party members in the game—Big Bull, Linda, and Epros—are originally among the Evil Kings (the Big Bull Evil King, Teen Idol Evil King, and Phantom Evil King, respectively) that serve as the story's bosses. Once you defeat them in battle, they join Ari's quest.
- Pokémon: In all of the games, the typical way you catch Pokémon that will later be added to your team will be by encountering it in the wild, battling it to lower its health, and throwing a Pokéball at it. After it's caught, it will usually obey you without question.
- Star Trek Online: In the Backstory to the game, Federation President Aennik Okeg appointed both of his election opponents to his Cabinet after he was inaugurated.
- Star Wars Legends:
- Knights of the Old Republic: Bastila Shan is taken prisoner by Darth Malak after holding him off so that the rest of the party can escape. Malak tortures her until she falls to The Dark Side and agrees to become his apprentice.
- Star Wars: The Old Republic: The remaining backstory of how Revan the Jedi Knight became Darth Revan is revealed in this game: he, Malak, and some of their followers were taken prisoner by Darth Vitiate, the Sith Emperor, and made to fall to The Dark Side. Vitiate then gave Revan and Malak an army to invade the Republic. Revan did so... on the notion of conquering the Republic so he could then use it to defeat Vitiate himself.
- Sword Fight:
- There are many rivals to fight against. If the player abides by restrictions when defeating them, they may be recruited as a rival master, who will eventually increase some of the skills above current maximum, and provides a passive benefit while they're employed.
- Rotvick was originally an enemy at the marketplace riot. However, he becomes reformed and requests your assistance to train him and his followers. His team is also needed in order to learn how to purify the blight.
- The Wonderful 101: Prince Vorkken expands his band of Space Pirates by hopping from planet to planet, defeating their greatest warriors, and then conscripting them.
Western Animation
- Kid Cosmic: In Season 2, Jo defeats the Fight Hole Champion named Krosh in order to obtain a stone of power. Then, Krosh seemingly joins the gang before she ends up backstabbing Jo to obtain the other stones for power.
Real Life
- Three Kingdoms – Shu, Wei, Wu: The warlords who eventually came out on top and formed the Three Kingdoms were partially able to do so because they knew when to hire those opposed to them. Cao Cao in particular became well-known for recruiting surrendered enemies into his forces, while those either too dangerous, ambitious, or incompetent to be utilised normally being allowed to retire to estates where they could quietly live out the rest of their lives.
- Zhang Xiu was a minor warlord under Liu Biao who surrendered to Cao Cao when the latter came calling. However, a number of events caused him to fear Cao saw him as a threat note , leading to Zhang launching an ambush that almost killed Cao himself had it not been for his bodyguard Dian Wei and oldest son Cao Ang sacrificing themselves to let him escape. During Yuan Shao's invasion of Cao's territory, Zhang's advisor Jia Xu recommended that he surrender to Cao rather than join Yuan. Despite his misgivings, Zhang did indeed surrender to Cao and was rewarded with the title of marquis and a rank as general, proving to be a competent frontline commander. note
- Zhang Lu ruled the territory of Hanzhong, which Cao Cao invaded as part of his efforts to reunify the fractured Han Empire. Zhang's younger brother Zhang Wei led a counterattack and was killed in battle, leading Zhang Lu to retreat from his capital city to his fortress in order to prepare for a last stand. Zhang was the head of a religious Taoist sect known as the Five Pecks of Rice, and so, following the order's teachings, he declined to either destroy his wealth and stockpiles or try to take them with him, instead securing them as they belonged to the people and not him. Cao was impressed enough with this to send an emissary calling upon Zhang to surrender, and he was welcomed into Cao's ranks. While he died only a year later, his sons would continue leading the Five Pecks of Rice sect, which still exists today.
- The biggest aversion of the era was the fate of Lu Bu. While Lu Bu was known as a powerful warrior and a talented general, upon his defeat and capture by Cao Cao, he offered to join him, noting that if Cao led the infantry and Lu the cavalry, they would be unstoppable. Cao asked Liu Bei his opinion, and Liu noted that Lu had previously served the general Ding Yuan and the warlord Dong Zhuo, and had betrayed both. Cao agreed that Lu was much too treacherous to be trusted and had him executed. Worse, he specifically had Lu Bu strangled: the execution method meant for women.
- After the battle of Chibi, Liu Bei led his forces on a multi-pronged invasion of Jing Province. The four administrators of the province promptly surrendered due to realising there was no way Cao Cao could aid them, and their own forces were woefully inadequate. While one of them later fled back to Cao Cao, the others were absorbed into Liu's forces. Two of Liu's later generals Huang Zhong and Wei Yan were among those forces absorbed, and would demonstrate enough prowess that they achieved high rank.
- The warrior Taishi Ci earned Sun Ce's respect by being a brave and competent general, and the two men even fought one of only two verified duels of the era when they happened to be leading reconnaissance parties and encountered each other. After Taishi Ci was finally defeated, Sun Ce warmly welcomed him and invited him into his ranks. Taishi offered to convince other former followers of his former lord to also surrender as a gesture of thanks, and Sun let him go. His advisors warned that Taishi might take the opportunity to flee, but Sun's trust was rewarded when Taishi returned with men in tow. Taishi would continue to serve Sun Ce and his successor Sun Quan until his death at the age of 41.
- One of Temujin "Genghis Khan" Borjigin's closest advisors was a rival Mongol chief who had nearly killed him in battle before being captured alive, and owned up to it when he was brought before the Khan. The Central Asian horse peoples as a general rule appreciated bravery and chutzpah, so Temujin gave him a job on his council.
- "Operation Paperclip" was an American project after World War II to recruit German scientists and engineers and bring them to the United States in order to continue their research and development of new weapons and technologies, particularly jet engines and rockets. A similar effort was performed for members of the Imperial Japanese Army's infamous Unit 731, which had conducted medical research and tested biological and chemical weapons on Chinese civilians. This was motivated by realpolitik: the Americans believed that if they didn't get that data, the Soviet Union would.
- It's common in US politics for presidential candidates to promise Cabinet posts or the vice presidency to defeated primary election opponents. Examples include President Barack Obama making then-Senators Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton respectively Vice President and his first Secretary of State, which Biden himself followed up by making Kamala Harris his Vice President and Pete Buttigieg his Secretary of Transportation.
