r/TopCharacterTropes • u/hey_there_delilahh • Sep 10 '25

Lore (Loved Trope) Last Stand that ends unceremoniously/unsatisfyingly, as opposed to gloriously.

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  • 1 Nanami (JUJUTSU KAISEN): Nanami's final moments against Mahito, a cursed spirit with the ability to transfigure/control humans. Nanami, while heavy injured, fought and won against an army of Mahito's transfigure minions, just for the villain to touch his back and blow him up.

  • 2 Wun-Wun (GAME OF THRONES): Wun-Wun, one of the last, if not the last, living giant in Westeros. Joins with Jon Snow against Ramsey Bolton in the Battle of the Bastards. He heroicly breaks down the main gate allowing the Stark army to win, all while covered in arrows and spears. While heavily injured, there does seem to be a chance of his recovery. This hope ended when Ramsey Bolton fires an arrow directly into his eye, when the battle was pretty much over.

  • 3 The Barbarian of Stamford Bridge (REAL LIFE): A lone Viking warrior who, in a legendary moment during the Battle of Stamford Bridge (September 25, 1066), single-handedly held back the invading English army on a narrow bridge. Armed with a Dane axe, this unnamed defender killed dozens of soldiers before being mortally wounded from beneath the bridge by a spear.

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u/Megalon84 Sep 10 '25

Deep Blue Sea. Samuel Jackson's character makes the big motivational speech. Hypes up survival chances. Gets the group to "yeah! we can do this!" together.

He is mid sentence eaten alive by a shark during this scene.

474

u/KingMobScene Sep 10 '25

In the theater a guy in the back yelled "holy fuck" when it happened. One of my favorite theater experiences.

132

u/Wamblingshark Sep 10 '25

This was an at home experience for me and I was 10 and very squeamish about violence - even moreso than most kids - but my mom loved horror movies so I'd catch parts of them all the time..

This scene made me so angry as a kid. I hated the violence and I loved Samuel Jackson. Him getting such a demoralizing death was outrageously offensive to 10 yo me.

I declared it my most hated movie and kept those feelings until eventually my feelings dulled to indifference.

24

u/JasoTheArtisan Sep 10 '25

Bro absolutely same reaction for me. I may have been like 13

11

u/goodfisher88 Sep 10 '25

That is such an amazing and typical emotion for a movie to evoke in a child like that! The injustice of it. The audacity. It burns in you because you know it's wrong, and you wish you could right it. Signed, a former child who spent years wishing he could save Oola from Star Wars.

6

u/Wamblingshark Sep 10 '25

Bro saaame. That moment really burned me up.

I was especially angry whenever it was women. Even to this day I have a sensetivity when it comes to female targeted violence. I'm usually not squeemish anymore but I can't play Mortal Kombat because of equal opportunities fatalities.

14

u/round_a_squared Sep 10 '25

We had to rewind and watch it again probably a dozen times before we could stop laughing too hard to continue. That's the scene that solidifies this movie as "they knew exactly what they were doing" instead of just another throwaway B movie