It seems like a common thread that there are few situations a virtuous heroic character can be put into than the hostage situation. The villain will plant bombs or find some other way to threaten ridiculous amounts of civilians with death unless their demands, however crazy they may be, are met. Even the most powerful hero can't fight that.
After seeing this situation dealt with in a novel series recently, I find it interesting how the two options in this unenviable scenario are alternately presented as the 'right choice', usually with someone making the argument both for negotiating and for consigning the hostages as 'acceptable losses' and take this chance to bring the hostage takers to justice (this is usually considered the 'bad' or 'cold' option, but not always).
On one hand, someone taking hostages in the first place is likely not negotiating in good faith and will probably continue using their hostages as leverage even after you value their currency at five times your country's or whatever insane thing they're demanding of you. On the other hand, can the characters live with themselves if they don't do all they can to save the hostages, even if they just use negotiating to stall?
Often a plot contrivance happens to get them out of this impossible choice, but not always. What good third choices have you seen for this situation, and which of the two regular choices do you consider generally superior?
After seeing this situation dealt with in a novel series recently, I find it interesting how the two options in this unenviable scenario are alternately presented as the 'right choice', usually with someone making the argument both for negotiating and for consigning the hostages as 'acceptable losses' and take this chance to bring the hostage takers to justice (this is usually considered the 'bad' or 'cold' option, but not always).
On one hand, someone taking hostages in the first place is likely not negotiating in good faith and will probably continue using their hostages as leverage even after you value their currency at five times your country's or whatever insane thing they're demanding of you. On the other hand, can the characters live with themselves if they don't do all they can to save the hostages, even if they just use negotiating to stall?
Often a plot contrivance happens to get them out of this impossible choice, but not always. What good third choices have you seen for this situation, and which of the two regular choices do you consider generally superior?
