In the climax of my novel, a mob storms the castle! They oust the evil king, but they then target the completely innocent crown prince (who was aiding the rebels to begin with). My MC is defending the prince but she can't hide him forever. The prince is unable to defend himself due to horrific injuries. How does one go about stopping a mob? In their frenzy they won't listen to factual evidence, how do I calm them down enough for my MC reveal who the rebel's benefactor was?
Does the mob need to be stopped or does she just need to get him out somehow? If it would be sufficient to get him out of the castle (once he was out he could continue to communicate with the rebels using his previous method) my focus would be on getting him out rather than stopping the mob. This could be done a number of ways be it disguising him as servant or even a rebel soldier, smuggling him out through secret passages. If most of the rebels know what he looks like things become more difficult. Presuming he knows the castle is bound to be attacked he could have let an authority figure in the rebels know who he is to prevent exactly this from happening. The authority figure could tell the mob before they tear him to pieces. Otherwise time would be a good way of calming them down. You say she can't hide him indefinitely, why not? Why not have some secret alcove somewhere in the castle that only a few people know about and keep him there until the mob calms down?
Machine guns and hand grenades? A few chain lightning and fireball spells in enclosed areas? Deathtraps like wall spears, pitfalls, etc? Lightning striking and fulfilling some terrifying prophecy? Have the mob find him, realise who he is, and therefore NOT kill him - either out of gratitude for what he did for them, or because they figure he's worth more to them alive, or because they'd much rather torture him to death slowly? The truth is, we don't really have any more information to go on here and we need it.
take out the key instigators/leaders of the mob, mobs usually have leaders. They're often depicted as mindless thugs tearing stuff up but kill or incapacitate the mouthpiece(s) and the rest will disperse pretty quickly.
You don't say what or who you have available to deal with the mob, but I think an act of sudden and extreme violence will, at least, make the mob pause.
The prince has sustained grievous injuries and cannot move on his own. Also, there are no weapons or other violent methods to stop the mob, it has to calm down peacefully.
He either goes Arthur Brown 'I am the god of hell fire' - type of display to halt everybody in their tracks, or he makes an impassioned, heartfelt, crucial dramatic speech, with sweat dripping from his chin, to the end of a sword...'just incredible...'we think - or you write him being ripped to pieces.
Can his protector do the amazing display instead? the prince is kind of... unconscious at this point.
When you're writing it all out...all the bits that feel unbelievable or stupid, well just keep on going, keep writing it. Once you have it all down in front of you, you will see the pictures in your head and it won't seem so unbelievable... If you do it properly, the readers' won't think...'doh, why did the writer write such rubbish,' they'll think 'wow, how did he get out of that...'
My (limited) experience with mobs tells me they can't be stilled by brilliant oratory. That's why I qualified my last post with 'believable'. You don't exactly define the genre of your story, but some sort of magic is the only way out I can see (or some lame deus ex machina, like a lightning storm that suddenly arises and kills the mob's leader).
Or...you've forgotten one. A bigger mob comes up behind the original mob and wipes them all out. So, for example, I suggest OP that you insert an extra chapter at the beginning where your hero saves a falling baby outside a tower block or similar, and the grateful Dad (or king) says, 'One day brother I hope I shall repay the favour something something.'
I gotta agree with @stevesh (yet again). Rampaging mobs often have a large number of people who're there just for the thrill of causing mayhem and hurting people. You can't reason them out of violence anymore than you can reason a hungry tiger from eating you, so the scene needs something that would stop these people, i.e. violence, another group to oppose them, a natural disaster, whatever, but peaceful methods won't work anymore with such mobs than with hungry tigers. That is, if you strive for realism; not all do and there's nothing wrong with preferring the fantastic.
Okay then, male rationalist version 1. Here comes the marauding mob. Will Princess Pixy save the king? No.
Erm. I'm female. Anyway, they can kill the king but they CANNOT kill the prince. In the madness of the crowd they're wrecking buildings and lighting fires. I need something big and loud to stop them. My MC has telekinesis (this is a fantasy setting) so how can I best put her powers to use in protecting the prince?
I meant those rough boys who said it was impossible to defeat the mob. ...maybe like a mass earache. 'Quick, prince...put these button mushrooms in your ears something.' or tidal cesspit, that'd be good. resurrect the graveyard, all the dead knights...would be good too, ehmm
First, I'm not rough. I'm a romantic. Second, it's perfectly possible to "defeat" a mob. It's just that if they're already violent, hurting and killing folks, i.e. in Archerian rampage mode, peaceful speeches or appealing to their rationale won't work. That is, if realism is the goal. Or do you know of real life instances where an already violent mob (i.e. the hurting and killing is already in full swing) has been stopped and pacified by one person's words alone?
You're largely ruling out every way to stop the mob short of getting them to pay attention to oratory long enough for it to have an effect. Personally, I go back to my other suggestion: you don't stop the mob but a mob leader finds Prince Paralysis and has some reason to keep him alive - respect for what he did in the past, torture-death as opposed to quick death as an example to others, knowledge he has that they need, etc, etc, etc. You can come up with all kinds of reasons that the leader might keep him alive. Being the leader he can persuade the few others with him (unlikely to get the whole mob in one small room) of the wisdom of keeping him alive. Once the mob is successful and quieted it can then be introduced as an idea to the others. Alternatively, random mob person finds him and hides him away for some nefarious reasons.
@T.Trian says: Or do you know of real life instances where an already violent mob (i.e. the hurting and killing is already in full swing) has been stopped and pacified by one person's words alone? Ummmm, let me think, ah historically, let me just look in my files, ah yes... bottom of paragraph three sucker x ...1-0...victory. http://www.heritage-history.com/?c=read&author=guerber&book=modfrance&story=versailles
Precisely. I need something exciting to happen to nab peoples attention. I'm thinking of the Studio Ghibli film, Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind. In one scene, the titular princess is too late to stop a mob from murdering her bedridden father, so she goes berserk and kills a fair number of them in a beautifully choreographed sequence which only stops as one of her allies prevents her from killing yet another mob member (by placing himself between her sword and the soldier). Now, my MC does not have the amazing Gymnast fighting skills Nausicaa has. My MC also has the advantage of arriving on time to protect her prince. So, what could I do instead?
