Virgin sacrifice

Virgin sacrifice - A common theme in fantasy.

The virgins in question are usually female. The sacrifice is usually unsuccessful (although it is usually indicated that there have been a long line of previously successful sacrifices).

Examples

Television

• "Guise Will Be Guise" (Angel episode)

Film

• Dragonslayer (1981) in which the virgins sacrificed to a dragon are chosen via a (rigged) lottery system.
• Conan the Destroyer (1984) in which the princess must be a virgin for the final ceremony

Related tropes

Monsters that devour or despoil virgins are related, and frequently the sacrifice is to such monsters (as in Dragonslayer). While in fairy tale, myth, religion, and modern pop culture/horror, "virgins" continue to be considered predominantly as young women who have not yet had sex, occasionally male virgins or sexual "purity" more generally are used. For instance, in "Teacher's Pet", a first-season episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xander and other boys are sought out by a female preying mantis, because they are virgins.

Sacrifice of young women, regardless of virginity, is also a related trope. For instance, in the Buffy episode "Reptile Boy", a local college fraternity has been engaged in secretly sacrificing young women to a demon for decades. Similarly, in Sheri S. Tepper's Singer from the Sea, wealthy men routinely sacrifice young women in order to maintain their own immortality.