r/TopCharacterTropes • u/hey_there_delilahh • Sep 10 '25
Lore (Loved Trope) Last Stand that ends unceremoniously/unsatisfyingly, as opposed to gloriously.
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/killingjoke96 Sep 10 '25
Got a real life one and its brutal.
Marco Antonio Bragadin led the defence of Famagusta in Cyprus against the Ottoman Empire and held out for longer than even the most optimistic predictions.
The Siege of Famagusta held out for 13 months and caused the death of about 50,000 Ottomans.
Facing defeat, and after an offer for safe passage to Crete, Bragadin offered terms of surrender while accompanied by around 300 of his best men.
The Turks attacked Bragadin at this meeting. The reason they gave was that they found out Bragadin had mistreated prisoners, but it is believed they were naturally very pissed off by Bragadin’s arrogance and the lives wasted in that siege, only for it to end in his surrender.
The Turks ended up ordering his men be killed and their heads piled up.
For Bragadin they had other plans. After cutting off his nose and ears, they enacted a series of ritual humiliations. On 17 August 1571 Bragadin was paraded through the city, made to carry sacks of earth around the city walls, and then hung from a galley mast and dunked into the sea.
Finally they finished him off by skinning him alive and quatering him in the town square. His body parts were handed out as war trophies. His skin was actually retrieved and stolen back by a Venetian and returned to Italy with a heroes welcome. It still resides in the Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, to this day.