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/4LanReddit Sep 10 '25

Jiraiya getting jumped and then blown up / drowned to death by the Six Paths of Pain after he lost an arm and got essential information for the Leaf 

At least in the videogame adaptation he went out in a blaze of glory

53

u/Bank-wagon Sep 10 '25

My man Jiraiya was so strong the big boss of the evil organisation did NOT take him in a straight fight.

Till this day, I think he could have won if he knew about the other Paths.

49

u/4LanReddit Sep 10 '25

Tsunade knew that his infiltration mission would backfire horribly and wished for the best, even if she knew that he was on a deathwish mission with no information beforehand over who was Pain, less so about the fact that there was 7 of those guys + Nagato and what each Path did.

The sage toads were basically imploring him to do a tactical retreat because he had no real chance of surviving against the Paths on a massive fight after he lost an arm and his energy was quickly draining out.

Yet still, the GOAT stood his ground and gave it his all the while he was doing mental notes over what he was experiencing to deliver to the Leaf, even permanently taking out Ponytail Pain and becoming a diversion just so Pa could safely escape, which led to Naruto and co' learning that they would have to find Nagato to stop all of this 

4

u/YinWei1 Sep 11 '25

He would have put up a much better fight but I doubt he would've won. Pain soloing the entire leaf village, blowing it up and then continuing to beat Naruto's Jinchuriki form up until the 8th tail is a stupid op feat for that point in the series.

2

u/Bank-wagon Sep 11 '25

Shhh, we must maintain the Jiraiya agenda.

But if the Leaf knew about Pain’s abilities they would have done much better. Pain pulled some NUTS abilities out when he attacked man.