So it's fun to rant about tropes I hate but I actually prefer to gush about tropes I love.
And one of them is what I call “the bargain”: it's really a game of wits between a (usually lawful) villain and a hero (or protagonist/antagonist, take your pick).
A deal is made, which looks to be heavily slanted in favor of the bad guy, but somehow the good guy finds something in the phrasing, or in the details, or in the requirements, that gets them released from the binding terms of that deal. 
It's a classic trope, earlier than Shakespeare (“pound of flesh, not a drop of blood”) and I absolutely can't get enough of it!
This type of fight can't be won with brute strength for whatever reason: either the protagonist isn't strong enough to overpower the antagonist and break the contract that way, or it just can't be done (there's magic involved or the legal system is not amenable, whatever). That means the protagonist has to outsmart the antagonist at their own game (usually the antagonist is the one that wins in these ‘contracts’). 
To add such a trope to your plot requires a bit of strategy. Not only must you think up a contract/deal/agreement that looks iron clad, but also what loophole there is that isn't immediately noticeable.
It might be already existing in the contract or it might be created by circumstance (chance or deliberate). 
But as the author, you must know what it is, and how it will come about so the contract is dissolved or cancelled.
It's a little bit like setting up a mystery when you must hide the clues to the solution, only instead of solving a murder you …dissolve a malicious deal!
Usually after the deal is off thanks to the loophole, we are also treated to a really cathartic, entertaining bad guy meltdown of the “IMPOSSIBLE!” variety. 
And that is just perfection.
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Tropes I love: The Bargain
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, March 19, 2022
5 likes!
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PaulEberhardt at 8:59AM, March 20, 2022
I love this trope, too! I'm usually to stupid to think up this kind of thing, but I sure wish I could. It's of course a staple in almost every story featuring djinns or elves (the mythological Celtic kind; in Germanic/Norse lore it might be trolls or dwarves as well), not to forget the classic deal with the devil from European fairy tales. In a contemporary story it may appear in your protagonist's battle with a hopelessly overregulated bureaucracy or as an unforeseen consequence of not reading the terms and conditions before clicking "I accept"; i.e. as a kind of "diabolus ex machinae" if you know what I mean. It's one of the rare tropes that never get old, and though it does appear in stories very often, I wouldn't say it's overused. The thing to look out for is that this loophole thing may be prone to become ridiculous if pushed too far. (However, so are some legal loopholes in real life, come to think of it.)
usedbooks at 11:28AM, March 19, 2022
They used this a lot in the 1950s Robin Hood series. It works pretty well with the textbook lawful evil/neutral antagonist, neutral good protagonist, and ridiculous medieval laws.
bravo1102 at 2:15AM, March 19, 2022
Bedazzled, Devil and Daniel Webster, Crossroads any number of Twilight Zone episodes even I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched. When done well deals are great. I have seen Devil and Daniel Webster a dozen times and still love Stephen Vincent Benet's genius. Another part of the bargain trope is the trial. Where it is brought to court, often a quite unusual one and it has to be argued and that loophole brought out. Crossroads and the David Niven movie Stairway to Heaven are ones like that.
hushicho at 12:29AM, March 19, 2022
I'm of a kind of conflicted mind with bargains and contracts, and more so things like geases. They can be overused really easily, and they can also seem really cheap or more powerful than they have any right to be. It can also really slow down a story to have bargaining in it, and that's usually very hard to make compelling. Even "Faust", an exemplary story of this type, tends to focus more on the things that motivate the person who makes the contract, and who he is and becomes as a person. It's not really about the bargain, as much as it is an opportunity to gradually develop and redeem a character the audience knew nothing about before the story started. The bargain is more a contrivance to allow for examination and analysis, and ultimately to tell an uplifting (supernatural) story.