Honey Trap: Difference between revisions

{{trope|wppage=Honeypots in espionage fiction}}

 

[[The Mole]] sent to gain the trust of a specific person... horizontally. Usually female, sometimes even a heroic [[Fake Defector]], the uniting thread is that there is one target and this one target is to be seduced. The others might be suspicious or even hostile, but that's incidental.

It has also been used in espionage, where the trapper gains secrets from the trappee. While the [[Mata Hari]] archetype is well-known, ''men'' can take this role as well, such as the "Romeo" agents of the East German Stasi during the [[Cold War]], sent to seduce the secretaries of West German ministers.

 

 

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* {{spoiler|Kaworu Nagisa, the seventeenth angel}} in ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]''. Although they never quite did it in either, he seemed a little more effective in the anime than in the manga; in both, {{spoiler|being forced to kill him}} set off the series' biggest [[Heroic BSOD]].

* {{spoiler|Yumi Horikoshi}} from [[Detective Conan]] did this, {{spoiler|threatening her ex-boyfriend Kazushi Nakanishi with sending R-rated photos of themselves (taken in the past) to his new girlfriend. And Kazushi got so pissed that he ''killed'' her.}}

** Also, {{spoiler|Akiko Sayama}} from the {{spoiler|"Night Baron Virus"}} case. {{spoiler|She invited [[Asshole Victim]] Ebara to her and her boyfriend's hotel room, spiked his drink, dressed him up as the Night Baron ''and threw him off the balcony''.}}

 

* Shira Brie from the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]].

* The [[Black Widow (comics)|Black Widow]] originally got her start as an [[Iron Man]] villain, sent by the Soviets to seduce him in order to learn his secrets.

* Blue Eyes from ''[[Sin City]]'' is a hired assassin that is used in this manner, although it seems that she could have been a more standard shoot-and-kill assassin but apparently [[Really Gets Around|really likes sex.]]

 

 

* ''[[Munich]]'' contains the line "beware the local Honey Trap" when the team is in London. The above comment is initially spoken as a joke by a married member of the Israeli team who turns her down {{spoiler|not realising it's literally true -- the woman is a female assassin setting them up for murder.}}

* ''[[North by Northwest]]'' contains one who is also a [[Double Agent]].

* Roxanne in ''[[Good Burger]]''.

* Lexy used this on Sam in ''Adulthood''.

* The seemingly sweet and innocent female lead turned out to be this in the [[Plot Twist]] for the film {{spoiler|Derailed}}

* The martian who dresses as a woman to get into the White House in ''[[Mars Attacks!]]''.

* The Film/''[[James Bond]]'' franchise has had a few of these, including Bond doing it himself on a couple of occasions.

** The most notable example is ''[[From Russia with Love]]'', where the aim of SPECTRE is to kill Bond and embarrass MI6.

*** Xenia also tries to do the same to [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] himself later on, and he almost falls for it, if not for the fact that when she slaps her thighs around him toward the end of the scene, it seems to knock some sense - And the fact he had seen the dead man Xenia killed previously in the exact same fashion - into Bond.

* The killer in ''[[Basic Instinct]]'' arguably does this.

* ''Bordello of Blood'' is a movie about a brothel, run by female vampires who eat their clients.

* In the little known 2006 film ''The Insurgents,'' a group of disillusioned Americans prepare to detonate a truck bomb in order to spark a revolution. In need of a driver for the truck, they set the one female of the group as the Honey Trap. The guy they find {{spoiler|later turns out to have been a Honey Trap ''himself,'' sent by a government agency to infiltrate the group.}}

* The killer in ''The Temp''.

* This is part of O'Ren's backstory in ''[[Kill Bill]].'' Noticeably, {{spoiler|it happened when she was ''eleven''... because O-Ren used ''herself'' as a HT, since the killer of her parents was not just a [[Yakuza]] lord but a [[Lolicon|pedophile]].}}

* ''The Assignment''. An American naval officer trained to become a [[Doppelganger]] of terrorist Carlos the Jackal finds that his assignment involves sleeping with Carlos' ex-girlfriend. As he's married he's rather disturbed by this, whereupon Donald Sutherland's CIA character quips: "Don't think of it as cheating on your wife; think of it as fucking for your flag."

* In [[The Film of the Book]] ''[[Clear and Present Danger]]'', Felix Cortex, head of "Security and Intelligence" for Columbian drug lord Ernesto Escobedo, takes up the Honey Trap role ''himself'' in order to get information from Moira Wolfson, who is the personal secretary of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

 

== Literature ==

* ''[http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Even-Complete-Dirty-Tricks/dp/0818403144/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1331990428&sr=8-2 Getting Even]'' by George Hayduke (it's a multi-volume work, so it might be volume two or three), describes the following (this is from memory so it's slightly paraphrased):

{{quote|Get a good looking girl, and an equally together guy who can pass for a girl with some help. Have the two seduce the target, and take both of them back to his room. The real girl should distract the guy, while the other "girl" removes "her" skirt and panties. At some point after this, you should rush into the room with a camera. Alternatively, you can set up an infrared camera, to take pictures without him finding out.}}

* In ''[[Romance of the Three Kingdoms]]'', Diao Chan was dispatched by her adoptive father to sow mistrust between [[Large and In Charge|Dong Zhuo]] and his right hand man/adopted son, [[One-Man Army|Lu Bu]]. It might have been the [[Ur Example]] if prostitution and espionage hadn't claimed the titles of the world's oldest and second-oldest professions respectively.

* Lale's mission in ''[[The Assassins of Tamurin]]''

* Gender inversion in the Gor series: Male slaves to trap free women into slavery.

* In ''[[Dune]]'', Jessica Atreides was conceived this way, since her mother {{spoiler|who was actually Gaius Helen Mohiam}} was sent to seduce Baron Harkonnen as part of the Bene Gesserit's [[Super Breeding Program]], but instead Harkonnen viciously raped her. She got her revenge by both becoming pregnant anyway, eventually leading her to her granddaughter Alia being the one who offs the Baron himself, and infecting him with a nasty STD.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

** Leverage also featured an episode where they faked a nonexistent Honey Trap to claim that a Senate seat was going to be vacant.

* Both sides use these in ''[[Hogan's Heroes]]'', although given the show's rating it's only limited (onscreen, at least) to makeout sessions. [[The Casanova|Hogan himself]] could be considered a male honey trap, given his tendency to seduce even the women of the Gestapo. It's also used by Fraulein Richter on Frau Linkmeyer's fiancee, to discredit him and make it look like he was having an affair before the wedding.

** Gina Inviere seems to have been doing this with Admiral Cain. Then she was found out. And found herself the prisoner of her mark. On a ship full of survivors of a genocidal massacre perpetrated by her side. She was in for a predictably [[Cold-Blooded Torture|unpleasant]] [[Rape as Drama|time]].

* A variation of this in ''[[Eastenders]]'' where Billy meets his future wife (called honey) after meeting her in a honey trap to check if somebody's husband is faithful. Honey got confused and mistook Billy for the person she was meant to be checking on so plenty of misunderstanding there.

** Later on in "He's Our You", Sayid {{spoiler|falls victim to this at the hands of Ilana the bounty hunter.}}

* ''[[Farscape]]'': Chiana is always flirting with some guy to provide a distraction for the team or get important information. Surprisingly, Sikozu also pulls one in the same trilogy, getting one of the space station employees to trust her so she can get into the system and assist in their escape.

* In an early episode of ''[[Wiseguy]]'', OCB undercover agent Vinnie Terranova finds that the mistress of a mobster is actually an undercover policewoman who lampshades the [[Double Standard]] involved. "If I were a man I'd be regarded as some kind of [[James Bond]]." In the "[[Government Conspiracy|Counterfeit Yen]]" arc, an intelligence official who's been hung out to dry by his fellow conspirators orders an escort girl to cheer himself up. He forms a relationship with her over time, and she tells him of a publisher she knows who's willing to offer money to tell his side of the story. It turns out the "publisher" and the girl are both KGB agents who offer him asylum in the Soviet Union. Faced with disgrace and imprisonment in the United States, or exile as a traitor behind the Iron Curtain, he decides to [[Take a Third Option]] and shoot himself.

* ''[[The Professionals]]'' ("The Female Factor"). A young prostitute is used to seduce a politician so he can be blackmailed into passing secrets to the KGB.

* One of these appears in a [[1000 Ways to Die]] case, seducing the political candidate that was [[The Rival]] to her boss and then siccing the press on him. She dies when she develops a ''fatal'' allergy that causes her a brain aneurysm through... sneezing too strongly.

 

 

* EVA in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 3'' was a shameless homage to the Honey Trap Bond girl. For both sides (Snake and Volgin). Naomi also dabbles in this, but more as a freelancer.

* Made use of in ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]: Vice City''. Having gotten hold of a porn studio, Tommy attempts to ensnare governor's wife Martha Shrub (hur hur, [[Strawman Political|get it?]]) into a photographed tete-a-tete with actress Candi Suxx. He gets [[Villainous Crossdresser|the governor]] instead.

* [[Mass Effect|Commander Shepard]] is the honey trap {{spoiler|for Morinth in Samara's loyalty mission.}}

* {{spoiler|Sonia Reed}} from ''[[Fire Emblem Elibe]]''.

 

* {{spoiler|Monica}} from ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' acts as Riff's girlfriend in order to get information for Chilus's cult. Oddly, her ability to keep Riff ensnared seems to be based not so much on sex appeal as "acting like a random nutcase."

* Though it was (hopefully) without any actual sex, recent revelations in ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'' have shown that {{spoiler|Antimony's mother Surma}} acted as this to {{spoiler|Reynard}} to lure him into the Court to "contain" him. [[Gone Horribly Right|It worked, but at least one person wound up dead]] and {{spoiler|Surma left the Court with Anthony Carver, severing their contact with their friends Anya and Donald Donlan and Surma's then boyfriend James Eglamore}}.

* In the ''[[Tales Of Gnosis College]]'' Jill Keeney accepts a mission of this sort with the aim of overthrowing a Latin American dictator.

 

* Vivian from [[Felarya]] is well-known for using seduction magic on smaller humanoids, [[Even the Girls Want Her|both male and female]]. Being a [[Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever|70 foot]] [[Snake People|naga]] and a predator, she then proceeds to ''eat'' the people she seduces.

 

== Western Animation ==

* Used and explicated in an episode of ''[[Archer]]''—of course, it's one of Archer's favorite operations. Which is why it's a rude shock when his mom sets him up for a honey trap with a ''male'' agent (a Cuban operative who would hate to have word of his gayness get back to the rather homophobic Castro) in order to retrieve sensitive info.

** And Archer, being Archer, gets upset when the Cuban turns down his vulgar come-ons. "'Not my type'? ''I'm EVERYONE'S type!''"

 

== Real Life ==

* Murder victim Bobby Kent went out with his "friends"/killers because he was promised sex with one of them.

* Luring gay men down to Africa and then blackmailing them (because homosexuality is very illegal in most countries) is a common form of romance fraud.

* Apparently there were some cases where beautiful women were sent as tribute/ransom. Said women having been infected with STDs. Guess what happened next...

* The first sex scandal in the history of the US government: a man set his wife to seduce [[Alexander Hamilton]], and then pretended to be outraged and threatened to go to the newspapers in order to extort money.

* Katrina Leung worked as a double agent for China and the FBI. She seduced several FBI employees including her FBI handler which got her information of use to China

* Cheryl Bentov, aka Cindy, an American Mossad agent, seduced a former Israeli nuclear technician who had disclosed Israeli nuclear secrets by posing as an American tourist, becoming his lover and persuading him to go to Italy with her, where he was kidnapped and smuggled to Israel.

* During the [[Vietnam War]], one of the largest intel sources for the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese intelligence operations were bars and brothels catering to American GIs.

* Prostitution stings, where a female cop goes [[Dirty Harriet|undercover as a sex worker]] to arrest anyone who employs her services are well-known in cities. The morality of this practice makes it controversial, and it is not as commonly used nowadays.

* Consumer activist [[Ralph Nader]] wrote a book criticizing the automobile industry in America. General Motors responded by hiring private detectives to tap his phones, and investigate his past. When that revealed nothing that could be used to discredit him, they hired some prostitutes to come on to him and trap him in compromising situations. It didn't work.

** Nader successfully sued General Motors and the New York Court of Appeals expanded tort law to include "overzealous surveillance," covering both the investigations and the prostitution set-ups.

* Fili Houtteman and two accomplices were given suspended sentences after it was found that photos of her cavorting naked with Daniel Ducruet, the husband of Princess Stephanie Grimaldi, were taken after he was ensnared by her in a honey trap.

* One very bizarre incident involved Frenchman Bernard Boursicot, who attempted to woo Chinese opera singer Shi Peipu, who also happened to be a spy for China and convinced him to engage in low-level spying for the Chinese government; only for (several years later) [[Attractive Bent Gender|Peipu to be revealed to be male]] and the child that was supposedly fathered by Boursicot having been purchased from a doctor. This incident ended up inspiring the [[Very Loosely Based on a True Story]] play [[M. Butterfly]].

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Characters As Device]]

[[Category:Espionage Tropes]]

[[Category:The Oldest Tricks in The Book]]

{{related|Chained to a Bed}}

{{related|The Schlub Pub Seduction Deduction}}

{{related|The Thirty-Six Stratagems}}